Slashdot Mirror


Google Attackers Identified as Chinese Government

forand writes Researchers, examining the attacks on Google and over 20 other companies in December, have determined 'the source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof.'"

651 comments

  1. World War III - The Cyber War by ATestR · · Score: 5, Funny

    Coming to a planet near you.

    --
    âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
    1. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Just wait for the posters who state that, just like 9/11, this was actually organized by the US Government to foster dislike of China to facilitate favorable actions by the US military.

    2. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Like 9/11, this was actually organized by the US Government to foster dislike of China to facilitate favorable actions by the US military,

    3. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by TheKidWho · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Cybermilitary, get it right. We're facing an ipv4 shortage, haven't you read peak ipv4?? We must reclaim all of the ipv4 resources that China has been hoarding these years!

    4. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thanks, I hate waiting.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
    5. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's time, my friends:

      10 years ago, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as hackers of fortune. If you have a problem with crackers, if no one else can help track them down, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The G-Team.

      --
      Sent from your iPad.
    6. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      you mean...
      we have an ipv4 Gap??

    7. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by nmb3000 · · Score: 1

      Wait, is this the start of the Great War? Already?

      But the US hasn't even annexed Canada yet!

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    8. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by megamerican · · Score: 0, Troll

      Just wait for the posters who state that, just like 9/11, this was actually organized by the US Government to foster dislike of China to facilitate favorable actions by the US military.

      I sure hate those damn Chinese for flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Germans for bombing Pearl Harbor.

      How on earth did you get modded insightful? Oh right, I must be new here.

      --
      If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
    9. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      I have conclusive proof of the matter, but I can not share it for it is a matter of national security.

    10. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Thanks, I hate waiting.

      unlike osama bin laden, saddam hussein, al-qaida and others, we can be pretty confident that the USA CIA has not trained and sponsored the Chinese government.

    11. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by baka_toroi · · Score: 0, Troll

      I blame the jews.

    12. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by rgviza · · Score: 1

      I knew Obama was trouble. Doesn't he know you never engage in a land war with China?

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
    13. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Of course it is. Don't you find it just a LITTLE bit odd that if you convert "don't be evil" to Hexidecimal, move some of the numbers and letters around, and do a few arithmatic operations on some of the numbers, you can get the Hex for "osama bin laden"! Seriously sheeple, wake up!

      It all started years ago with King Henry the 8th and his second wife Anne Bolyn. They had a plan for a new world order under the Church of England (Anglican) but too few of the populace wanted to convert away from Catholicism. Later they started turning Lutheran which kind of pissed him off. So he went back in time and told his ancestors (Like King Richard the Lionheart) to go and Crusade Jerusalem which was and still is one of the worlds religious centers. Using the power of Religion he was able to pull the hood over everyones eyes and secretly worship the Pagan Gods, because that is somehow important, but I'm not sure how, I heard it on Zeitgeist. And then while banging his 5th or 6th wife (evidence isn't sure which) King Henry drafted up a plan to assassinate whatever political leader of the new world had the most power, a hundred years or so later. Using his time machine he was able to get to America and pick off JFK from the Grassy Knoll.

      He has now gone into hiding, using nefarious agents to do his bidding. Rumour has it that it was HE who convinced Ronald Reagan to go into acting, thus ruining the lives of many people across the globe. This severe depression mutated into a heireditory trait, which started the spawn of Emo kids. This is also part of Henry's plan, as he is training the youth of tomorrow to where lots of black clothing and makeup - both male and female, making them more difficult to see as assassins. Secret schematics have discovered that tight pants have been introduced to help reduce the noise created while moving stealthily.

      Up until recently, everything was going according to plan. Little did King Henry expect that computer technology would be such a huge influence on the world of tomorrow. With the free flow of information it was highly likely that someone would stumble across his plans. He sent his emo-assassins after Steve Ballmer, who failed. With this failure he visitted Ballmer at a conference, who was shocked and dismayed. Ballmer was so shaken up that the only word he could say was "Developers". Ballmer rushed on stage to warn everyone about this nefarious plan, but couldn't deliver the message. He was brainwashed shortly after.

      With Microsoft under control King Henry then targetted Google. Employing a new strategy he tried corrupting them by posting links to a Michelle Obama Monkey picture on his blog, forcing them to censor images. When Google went into China, Henry didn't like the idea of Google becoming more powerful then his pawn Microsoft. As such, he hired hackers to infiltrate the Chinese government and then attempt to Hack Google, thus removing any suspicion of an American company attacking Google, as well as forcing Google out of China.

      And here we are in the present day, STILL with the hood pulled over our eyes, because all of the media outlets are controlled by the worlds greatest ruler, King Henry the 8th.

    14. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by BiggoronSword · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even if we took all our IPv4 addresses back, It won't make a difference. The Great Firewall of China will just start using NAT.

      --
      interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
    15. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hilary Clinton killed vince foster on behalf of china? What?

    16. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by PrescriptionWarning · · Score: 5, Funny

      ah, but what about a LAN war? Thats good to go right?

    17. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by TheKidWho · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You mean everything will start pointing towards the Great IP of China?

      Great....

    18. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by noidentity · · Score: 0, Redundant

      just like 9/11, this was actually organized by the US Government to foster dislike of China to facilitate favorable actions by the US military. !!!!

    19. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      favorable actions

      Holy fucking euphemism. Is that term in official use?

    20. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by stuntpope · · Score: 2, Funny

      I blame the Juice, and I predict he'll get away with it again.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson

    21. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I don't know about being new here, but your reading comprehension is somewhere between "straight up retard" and "poor". Jesus christ dude, are you serious or are you trolling? "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT I AM TYPING?" as you clearly didn't understand the post you replied to.

    22. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

      Nah. Even a hardcore tinfoil-hat wearer would think of it as a western-orchestrated FUD campaign to hit China's economy, and that's only if other corporations acknowledged being attacked.

    23. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by instagib · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Holy shit. You just gave governments the ultimate idea for complete Internet control.

    24. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by ringfinger · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Not sure why this is scored as '5, funny' and not '5, insightful'

    25. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by YesDinosaursDidExist · · Score: 1

      I agree

      --
      Individuals must choose, decide their "essential" nature rather than having it given from some transcendent source.
    26. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by WindowlessView · · Score: 4, Insightful
      > the USA CIA has not trained and sponsored the Chinese government.

      We can credit the corporations, the banks, and bonehead economists for this one.

      --
      Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
    27. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by PsyciatricHelp · · Score: 1

      I am afraid a LAN war would be pointless. WAN war on the other hand.

    28. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Danathar · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Damn you Darth Cheney! We all KNOW you are behing the attacks.

    29. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you have not noticed that China has created their own, almost identical version of IPv4 and mandaded its use for all computers within the Great Firewall?

      No royalties paid for anyone, of course.

    30. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by snspdaarf · · Score: 2, Funny

      Cue the footage of automatic weapons fire at Interop, with servers and monitors getting the shit shot out of them, banners falling, booth babes running for cover, glass, smoke, and flames everywhere, and not a single attendee getting hit.

      --
      Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
    31. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Facegarden · · Score: 2, Funny

      The Cybermilitary, get it right. We're facing an ipv4 shortage, haven't you read peak ipv4?? We must reclaim all of the ipv4 resources that China has been hoarding these years!

      We've got to close the IP address gap! We can't let those commie bastards take all the IP addresses!

      We'll build bunkers in the mountains FULL of ISP's all requesting tens of thousands of IP addresses!
      -Taylor

      --
      Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
    32. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by stallmans.beard · · Score: 1

      screw china! i was wondering what DHS has against Dragonfly BSD:

      (from DragonflyBSD Digest)
      http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2010/01/14/5308.html
      Hello, government! I noticed some slowness when reaching this server, this morning. Logging in, there was no heavy CPU or swap usage. Looking at netstat, I saw the reason: the Department of Homeland Security was poking around. I had a ton of http connections from the Department of Homeland Security. Here’s a fragment:
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.4985 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.5628 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.6168 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5551 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.5783 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5319 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5077 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5636 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5130 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.6007 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.6546 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.6083 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.6397 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 12923 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.4972 CLOSING
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5273 TIME_WAIT
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5157 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.6130 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.6171 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 26015 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov.5758 FIN_WAIT_1
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.5660 FIN_WAIT_2
      tcp4 0 0 cpe-74-74-237-13.http bcp5.cbp.dhs.gov.5547 FIN_WAIT_2
      Looking at my web server logs to see what was being retrieved, it appeared to mostly be this Digest: (again, a fragment)
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:20 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2004/09 HTTP/1.1" 200 66280 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:19 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2007/01 HTTP/1.1" 200 69492 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:51:29 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2008/03 HTTP/1.1" 200 71795 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:21 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2008/06 HTTP/1.1" 200 76529 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:17 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2007/05 HTTP/1.1" 200 72058 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:19 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2008/10 HTTP/1.1" 200 73876 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.155 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:51:52 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2004/02 HTTP/1.1" 200 66507 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:23 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2005/01 HTTP/1.1" 200 67146 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:19 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2006/02 HTTP/1.1" 200 70752 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:52:16 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2007/03 HTTP/1.1" 200 70718 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:53:12 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/xmlrpc.php?rsd HTTP/1.1" 200 918 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)"
      63.167.255.152 - - [14/Jan/2010:08:51:31 -0500] "GET /dbsdlog/2003/12 HTTP/1.1" 200 67549 "http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2010/01/13/5306.html?bcsi_scan_B185D4CBD207A2FC=1" "Mozill

    33. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's paranoid, but there is a sane line of thought. Yes, the chinese government is conducting espionage, every government in the world conducts espionage. Google is a very likely victim of espionage being so juicy, especially for the Chinese (and everybody else). Google can hardly be unaware of the attacks on it by all kind of places on earth, so:

      1. Why are they revealing this attack?
      2. Why are they revealing an attack by the Chinese?
      3. Why now?

      Interesting times, indeed.

    34. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by natehoy · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I love it when a LAN comes together."

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    35. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      That would make it a hell of a lot easier to blacklist, at least...

    36. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Phrogman · · Score: 1

      Of course it is. Don't you find it just a LITTLE bit odd that if you convert "don't be evil" to Hexidecimal, move some of the numbers and letters around, and do a few arithmatic operations on some of the numbers, you can get the Hex for "osama bin laden"! Seriously sheeple, wake up!

      Nice try Dan Brown, but no amount of foreshadowing here on /. is gonna let you crank out another extremely shitty book and make even more cash. Keep with the stealing from Holy Blood Holy Grail, its worked so far.

      --
      "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
    37. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really enjoyed reading this

    38. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by SirTicksAlot · · Score: 1

      Inconceivable!

    39. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Latinhypercube · · Score: 0

      At least with this we will be able to ask WHY ? Unlike 9/11 (ahem ~ because of US backing of Israel NOT Saudi military bases ~ ahem)

    40. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never fight a LAN war in Asia...

    41. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      What? Make everything the same, but start addresses with 10? People inside the network will just use the 10/8 addresses as real, and to connect outside they just need to bypass the NAT/firewall. That is the exact same situation they have today, except that they won't have the 10/8 addresses available for NAT inside China, and will have quite a lot less space than now.

      If anybody thinks that NAT adds security (any kind of security), please, take another look at the issue.

    42. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Cylix · · Score: 1

      In the future, all conflict will be settled with online gaming. (Beats the silly mech arena concept).

      --
      "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
    43. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by StreetStealth · · Score: 1

      Could this happen?

      I mean, not just vanilla NAT but the development of an alternative flavor of IP to be deployed on state-owned routers with standard IP gateways on the outside ends.

      Imagine some exotic fork of IPv6 with a few strange omissions and other surprising features, geared toward efficient DPI, content filtering, and social network analysis, designed by some of China's most brilliant network architects, theorists, and engineers.

      --
      Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
    44. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Thats true in a way, China's WAN is really a LAN, at least thats how they see it.

    45. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by indi0144 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You have bought something on walmart? perhaps any computer parts? oh well, YOU sponsored them, but we all can share the blame it's not like the only market for Chinese stuff is the US of A. Let's not talk about bankers.

    46. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

      This joke held so much promise, but in the end I was disappointed with the execution.

      --
      music lover since 1969
    47. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Westech · · Score: 5, Funny

      "ah, but what about a LAN war? Thats good to go right?"

      Sorry, no. In response to the changing technological and political landscape all international conflicts must now be run through battle.net.

    48. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is it they say about LAN wars in Asia?

    49. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Darric · · Score: 1

      Google Defence Force (GDF) verus Naughty Oriental Dudes (NOD)?

      Begun these Cyber Wars have!

    50. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by berashith · · Score: 1

      Bluto: Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
      Otter: Germans?
      Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

    51. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by WoLpH · · Score: 4, Funny

      World War WAN? That might be confusing

    52. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Stealth+Dave · · Score: 5, Funny

      ah, but what about a LAN war? Thats good to go right?

      You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a LAN war in Asia"!

      - Stealth Dave

      --
      Evil is as eval("does");
    53. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, is this the start of the Great War? Already?

      But the US hasn't even annexed Canada yet!

      Well of course not, duh! We don't need to annex one of our own states!

      :-P

    54. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 1

      I buy a lot at WalMart. Living in a small town as I do, the small merchants charge extortionate markup prices on everything in their stores. It's a godsend, especially to lower income people living in small towns, that WalMart has broken up that operation.

      Also, have you walked into the mom & pop stores? They're filled with merchandise produced in China.

    55. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by OldeTimeGeek · · Score: 1

      So the Google's shareholders don't freak out when Google leaves a potentially lucrative market?

    56. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Doshin · · Score: 1

      Does this mean that Uplink is the new Americas Army?

    57. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Laptop in-hand...
      uplink cables ready...
      no system is safe...
      I'll suck the internet dry!

    58. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Publikwerks · · Score: 1

      This would have been a major story if God hadn't smote Haiti. Even the State department was getting involved. I was hoping for them to play hardball, but it's going to take a back seat(not that it shouldn't). It's like China has an Earthquake machine.

    59. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by arevos · · Score: 2, Funny

      King Henry drafted up a plan to assassinate whatever political leader of the new world had the most power, a hundred years or so later.

      Henry VIII planned to assassinate Louis XIV?! The plot thickens!

    60. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ah, but what about a LAN war? Thats good to go right?

      Never start a LAN war in Asia.

    61. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by an00bis · · Score: 1

      If it was a LAN they couldn't pronounce it.

    62. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 1

      Wow...I don't suppose you have any aspirations of becoming a Hollywood writer do you? I think that's the most original and entertaining thing I have seen in a decade. =)

    63. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not hardly, since Bill decided to sell them guidance technology.

      heads up, it ain't just gonna be in the milk next time.

      jr

    64. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      No shit. Even Imperial Stormtroopers are better shots than the A-Team...

    65. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And everyone else who like to buy cheap made in China products?

    66. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get some Mongolians. Enough said.

    67. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by rwhealey · · Score: 1

      It on the front page of the New York Times...

    68. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by WindowlessView · · Score: 1

      Those beneficent corporate titans, always thinking of the little guys. How could I have forgotten their altruistic intentions?

      --
      Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
    69. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't fight a LAN war in Asia!

    70. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by TerranFury · · Score: 1

      Guess it's time to start learning Korean....

    71. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

      Remember soldier, when you're captured by the enemy you owe them only three pieces of information!

      A/S/L, nothing more!

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    72. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

      World War WAN? That might be confusing

      Heaven help us when we reach World War Five. America's finest pro wrestlers will be helpless before the might of China's panda commandos...

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    73. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by drougie · · Score: 1

      As a Google shareholder, I am not only not freaked out on the business end, I am excited that this great company may be capitalizing on an opportunity to make real history here.

    74. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by harp2812 · · Score: 1

      In the future, all conflict will be settled with online gaming. (Beats the silly mech arena concept).

      In other news, South Korea is set to become a global superpower...

      --
      I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.
    75. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      01 if by LAN, 10 if by C

    76. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by tsm_sf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I don't make much money and have three children. Where else am I going to buy my new TV?"

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    77. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by ViralInfection · · Score: 1

      Finally my autoblogs will breathe easier with some cheaper ex-china ip's Honestly, that's it china, we're cutting off the internet, your grounded buddy.

    78. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this explains everything.

    79. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Holy shit. You just gave governments the ultimate idea for complete Internet control.

      What ultimate idea? How is it any different from just using a firewall?

    80. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "It's a godsend, especially to lower income people living in small towns, that WalMart has broken up that operation."

      Shortsighted people are always happy to save a dime, or a dollar. Those who can see further than the length of their noses look around to see where the money goes, and how it works after it's out of their pockets.

      Money spent at Wal-Mart does your community no good. Money spent at Mom & Pop's all goes back into your community - minus restocking costs, of course.

      Likewise, money spent on Chinese goods all goes to help China boot strap itself into the next "super power". Money spent on US goods goes right back into the United States.

      I know - this is terribly complicated, and it might take months of study for the average consumer to understand this. But, this is why they are "consumers" and not "producers". Parasitic morons.

      --
      "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
    81. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Damn you Darth Cheney! We all KNOW you are behing the attacks.

      Only he could be so bold. The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this!

    82. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      You really do have the wrong idea of the government of China. It is some some cohesive cabal plotting the down fall of the rest of humanity. It is an autocracy made up narcissistic and psychopathic individuals (otherwise they would be a democracy) all out to empower and enrich themselves. Their greatest enemies are each other, they all live with the constant threat of being executed for corruption, naturally enough as the majority of them are corrupt (otherwise they would be a democracy). So power plays, feeding the personal ego, eliminating threats to their power, increasing their own personal power, that is the government that has to be dealt with. Of course it makes them pretty vulnerable to divide and conquer techniques, as each of them has not the slightest qualm about betraying their partners in crime or any other Chinese citizens if it will advance their own personal cause (hmm they seem to use that same technique with US corporate executives).

      Of course the active disruption of US information infrastructure is, 'hmm' , breaching the peace and as such should face some real penalties. So investigate, prosecute and punish via trade penalties. As for more active tactics, feeding the flames of their own backbiting internal divisions will keep them focused upon their own backyard.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    83. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by wickedskaman · · Score: 0

      ~:-O That's mean!

      --
      Sand's overrated... it's just tiny little rocks.
    84. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by a_nonamiss · · Score: 1

      You do one hell of an impression of a schizophrenic. Or you are one...

      --
      -Arthur
      Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
    85. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by TheKidWho · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Would you like shoe??? Come visit on biz4shoeyou.com, We have Nike $29, Adidos $19, Dasiel $39. Even have pPods and iKrone for only $79!!!!!!

    86. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by godglike · · Score: 1

      You, sir, should be a journalist.

      For Fox or the Onion.

    87. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I don't got no time for your LAN jabber foo!!!"

    88. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by opposabledumbs · · Score: 1

      And you're sure that ALL the components of the computer that you just wrote this with were produced in the US? Or are you a 'producer', who produced every single part of it yourself? What about those of us who don't live in the U.S.? I actually do live in China - should I choose U.S. made products, and instead of helping China bootstrap itself, support a one-sided cultural and economic hegemonic power with a long track record of destructive meddling in other countries affairs?

      Personally, I'd rather choose to buy the best item according to the needs that I have identified, thus supporting good business and encouraging innovation and change. But by all means, buy American, although I have no idea how you can really do that, especially in tech products, these days.

      Disclaimer: Not supporting any specific govt here, I just don't see how you can argue that because some people choose a better price for a consumer product, they are parasites compared to people who shop in mom and pop stores.

    89. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by TikiTDO · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it would be great, wouldn't it. You could just block the Great IP of China, and save yourself a lot of headaches.

    90. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...

      It all makes total sense now. How could I have been so blind! But wouldn't Henry need backers, could it be that Z<CARRIER LOST>

    91. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      because some people choose a better price for a consumer product, they are parasites compared to people who shop in mom and pop stores.
      ===================
      Well - I've posted this many times, in many places. Take a consumer product. Just pick one. Find several samples from around the world. Really look at the quality of each sample. We know ahead of time, you can expect to find the best quality of some items in one locale, the best of another item somewhere else, etc. I'm going to pick knives and tools - something that I use a lot of.

      Your standard open and box end wrench makes a good example. The market is flooded with cheap Chinese wrenches. I can buy an entire set of wrenches for the same price I pay for a single American made wrench. But - put those wrenches to work. The box end rounds out and slips after a short period of time - I look at it, it's CHINESE. I put the open end on a stubborn nut, and turn - just to have the wrench break in half. No big deal, you might say - except, when the wrench broke, I overbalanced and cracked my head into the machine I was working on. The doctor says I don't have a concussion - but he wants $100 for the office visit.

      I could have bought three sets of American made wrenches for that office visit.

      I mentioned knives. The US doesn't have the corner on good knives. Europe makes knives that are equal to anything we make. Get a good knife - Schrade, an older Buck, Case - pick a good knife. Walk through Wal-Mart, and pick up one of those cheap 2 to 5 dollar knives made in China. Take out your good quality US or Euro knife, and try carving pieces out of the Chinese knife. You bet your arse it will dull the good quality knife - but I can sharpen it up again. The Chinese knife? It might make good filler metal in a welded fitting, if you're not terribly demanding.

      I kinda like knives - not a collector or anything, I just like them. I've seen some excellent knives from places that surprised me, starting with Japan, the Phillipines, South Africa. Strangely, I've never seen a single high quality knife made in China.

      Dude - if you can't get basic metallurgy right, then how on earth can you get high tech right? Good steel isn't much more complicated than baking a cake, after all. You start with a proven recipe, measure carefully, take your time and get the heat right, mix properly - and the work is almost done. All that's left is cutting, rolling, forging, or otherwise shaping and forming.

      Do Chinese bake? Come on - I'm sure you guys have breads, cakes, cookies, and other grain products. What's so hard about making good iron and steel? Maybe the problem is, no one really gives a shit.

      Whatever. Quality. It isn't something a salesman puts into a product. It doesn't matter how much advertising hype Target puts out. When I walk into Target, and find a shirt with one sleeve longer than the other, it's a shit product. When we buy some milk chocolate, just to read headlines about melanine laced dairy products, it's a shit product. When homes are built with drywall from China which gives off corrosive fumes, that is a shit product.

      But, "consumers" don't look at quality anyway. Don't mind me - I'm the odd man out in the US today. I expect things to perform, and to last. I don't look at the advertising, the packaging, or even the cosmetic finish of most products. I want performance and durability.

      China's products are not known for either trait. Which is kinda funny. China has the most durable CULTURE in the world. (note, I didn't say government, or even society - I said culture)

      --
      "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
    92. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      No need to call me Sir, I am not a knight. If I were a knight, you could bet I'd be in on the whole thing.

    93. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      We aren't sure which.

    94. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 0

      Money spent at Wal-Mart does your community no good.

      You think WalMart flies in people from China to work at our local WalMart??

      I know - this is terribly complicated, and it might take months of study for the average consumer to understand this.

      Please just cut the condescension.

    95. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Civil_Disobedient · · Score: 1

      But, "consumers" don't look at quality anyway. Don't mind me - I'm the odd man out in the US today. I expect things to perform, and to last.

      Same here. I tend to look at all purchases as if I was buying the "last X I'll ever need." This is mostly because of years of re-buying crappy toasters, ineffectual humidifiers, vacuum cleaners that suck but don't SUCK... I just got sick of all the re-buying.

      These days, all purchases that I plan on reusing goes through usually a week or two of online research. But unlike most Wal-Mart idiots, I am ready and willing to spend more--sometimes way more--just for the peace of mind.

      I long for the day that a car manufacturer comes out with a vehicle with stainless steel bolts (and no, Deloreans still use the same crappy rust-tacular steel that everyone else uses under the hood).

    96. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are missing the obvious,....

      "Never get involved in a LAN war in asia,....."

      --
      Princess Bride

    97. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by u38cg · · Score: 1

      Balls. Most of the money you spent at M&P went straight out of town to buy new stock. The rest went on the owners and their taxes, and very little recirculated in the local economy. In contrast, Walmart saves you money (I presume, or if not it offers some other sort of benefit) which you are then free to spend on, well, the local economy. Walmart, as a traded company, is a major part of the portfolio of institutional investors such as pension funds and mutuals. When you encourage people not to shop at Walmart, you're damaging people's 401(k) and their college funds. When it comes to morons, you might want to try checking closer to home.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    98. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by u38cg · · Score: 1

      China's products are not known for either trait. Which is kinda funny. China has the most durable CULTURE in the world.

      I notice you don't make the connection with their biggest customer and what that customer wants. China will make anything you want her to make: but if people prefer to choose cheaper products that don't last as long, then that is what you will see on shelves.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    99. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by damien_kane · · Score: 1

      If King Henry is really a time-travelling assassin, bent on affecting as much of future-history as possible in an effort to overthrow non-anglican government; then wouldn't he have killed you before you wrote that post (after reading it today, of course), thus creating a temporal paradox and destroying reality as we know it?

      I'm just sayin'...

    100. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by damien_kane · · Score: 1

      ...

      But wouldn't Henry need backers, could it be that Z<CARRIER LOST>

      Nope, it's the Spanish Inquisition...
      They don't like Judeo-Christian based religions, either.

    101. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      Makes you suspicious about ME then doesn't it...

    102. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by gbutler69 · · Score: 1

      ...designed by some of China's most brilliant network architects, theorists, and engineers.

      So, in other words, it'll be reall cheap, but, will break in the first six months

      --
      Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
    103. Re:World War III - The Cyber War by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you'd like a tee shirt?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  2. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It couldn't be them. China would never do anything wrong.

    That... or they'll just blame it on their status as a "developing nation" and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else.

    1. Re:But... by Serenissima · · Score: 2, Funny

      But we Chinese have such tiny penis! How could we do such things with such tiny penis? You Americans have such gargantuan penis that you so much better than us!





      (Yes, I do know that when South Park did this joke, they were really Japanese)

      --
      Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
    2. Re:But... by a-zarkon! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I am the last person to defend the Chinese government - but I read the article and it is not too clear on how they determined that the source is actually the Chinese government? Is it all based on the fact that the traffic is coming from certain IP addresses or is there (hopefully) more than just that to support the conclusion. Not advocating anyone trying to hack google, but if they did - pwning some unpatched pirated copy of Windows in China to use as a launching point wouldn't exactly be the worst approach to keep the heat from finding whoever was doing it.

    3. Re:But... by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It couldn't be them. China would never do anything wrong.

      That... or they'll just blame it on their status as a "developing nation" and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else.

      The original official notification of this from Google's Chief Legal Officer where he mentioned human rights advocates and human rights issues causes this to seem above the average security breach:

      Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

      I can understand how "We can't enforce copyright on software and music when we're busy lifting hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty as a developing nation" works but I can't understand how "We need to arrest and persecute human rights activists because we're a developing nation" works.

      --
      My work here is dung.
    4. Re:But... by fredrik70 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      as they say: "It's not the size of the ship, its the motion of the ocean"

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    5. Re:But... by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      That... or they'll just blame it on their status as a "developing nation" and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else.

      No, you see that works for things like terrible environmental practices, hostile work environments, and building up military strength. All those things help development, no matter how harsh they are.

      Hacking Google does not help China develop its industries.

      It'd be like saying "Sorry I read your email, Its because I'm a starving college student".

    6. Re:But... by Narpak · · Score: 1

      ..and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else.

      Somehow I think that MI6, CIA, FSB, or other major security organizations, are committing countless similar attacks; they are just slightly better at hiding it. And such companies, or organizations, that they do attack wouldn't be investigated or reported by groups such as VeriSign.

    7. Re:But... by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Funny

      We know because we hacked their servers ... duh.

    8. Re:But... by FlyingBishop · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They traced it to Chinese government IPs. Unless China comes out and says they were hacked, and are working with Google to find the nature of the attack, that's pretty ironclad.

    9. Re:But... by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's botnets running on government computers in most countries, China is probably not an exception. I'm not saying they didn't do it, just that IPs are not complete proof.

    10. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, like they shouldn't be held accountable for policing their manufacturning facilities and keeping lead and cadmium out of childrens toys . Seems like WWIII has started a little early, no one bothered to inform us. China is actively attacking American corporations, as well as poisoning our children. I don't believe in war, per se, but I do believe in cutting trade ties. I spent a day going to the most expensive toy shops in the city, and all I could find was a really expensive doll made in China. The toy dealer said they could order a doll from Germany, for over $600. Who knows why we couldn't produce one for $40-$100 . . .

    11. Re:But... by antimatt · · Score: 1

      ...we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

      cui bono?

    12. Re:But... by VirginMary · · Score: 1

      Somehow I think that MI6, CIA, FSB, or other major security organizations, are committing countless similar attacks; they are just slightly better at hiding it. And such companies, or organizations, that they do attack wouldn't be investigated or reported by groups such as VeriSign.

      What's your point? I hope not, that this somehow excuses this action possibly perpetrated by the Chineses government! I also doubt that MI-6 is going after human rights activists.

      --
      When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
    13. Re:But... by maxume · · Score: 1

      If you are a strict utilitarian and think that authoritarian guidance will be more effective than the result of a collapse of the current government.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    14. Re:But... by dave562 · · Score: 1

      The articles I've read have only had two details that are relevant to your question. According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the primary focuses of the investigation is a compromised server at RackSpace (big surprise, right?). The details about the forensic analysis of that server haven't been available, but it appears to have been the equivalent of the digital dead drop through which information was passed. The second detail is that most if not all of the attacks appear to have originated in Taiwan. According to the article, the Chinese often use compromised Taiwanese machines to proxy their hacks through.

    15. Re:But... by heson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How sure are we this whole article isn't propaganda (from PNAC)? /Trust no one

    16. Re:But... by number17 · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile the Russians are laughing.

    17. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That... or they'll just blame it on their status as a "developing nation" and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else.

      I'd just like to point out that they have nearly 3 times the population of the US with a comparable land area.

      Ain't nothing develop-ING about that, if you ask me! If you can grow enough food to make a billion babies have a chance of growing up and having more babies (or to put it another way, the largest self-supporting population on the planet, in the history of mankind, ever), then you're kind of a DEVELOPED nation

    18. Re:But... by InlawBiker · · Score: 1

      All the Chinese Govt needs to do is hang an unsecured WiFi access point off their core network. Then they can blame the neighborhood kids.

    19. Re:But... by krou · · Score: 1

      I'm also curious what their evidence is. The Ars Technica article just has the quote used above: "The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof." These accusations are being made by a company that possibly has a lot to gain by over-hyping the threat, so perhaps some healthy /. scepticism on this is necessary. Does anyone have access to the actual report to clarify what the evidence is? I had a look on the iDefense website, and couldn't see it anywhere.

      --
      'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
    20. Re:But... by dave562 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hacking Google does not help China develop its industries.

      Yes it does. At least according to the Wall Street Journal, the compromise goes far beyond a Gmail compromise of a few accounts belong to some human rights activists. Google is claiming that they've suffered an intellectual property loss due to a server compromise. Any time that China steals research from someone else, they've improved their industry without having to invest in the R&D. Beyond Google, the official count is up to 34 companies far that have suffered severe breaches.

      We are in an era where China is being more and more restrictive on foreign companies. China was open when it was beneficial to them. They were open when it brought foreign expertise into their country. They welcomed foreign companies with open arms because they stood to benefit from the knowledge those companies have. Now that the Chinese have the knowledge, they are becoming more nationalistic (as if that were possible). They are heavily favoring national companies. A recently passed government procurement process contained a provision that government agencies must find local suppliers for IT systems and software. The Chinese have stolen enough technical know how from HP and Dell and IBM and Cisco and the rest that they can produce hardware that is good enough for their needs. China is now the largest automobile market on the planet, and they're building cars based on designs and with processes stolen from American and Japanese manufacturing firms. I read a story last year where Ford or GM was suing a Chinese company for selling a car that was more or less based entirely on a design and manufacturing process that was stolen whole sale from (Ford/GM).

      The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture. All of the games that people play have been played, observed and pondered in China for A LONG TIME. For the past couple of decades they have been benefiting from American processes and technologies. Americans have benefited from a Chinese willingness to use our processes to provide us with affordable goods. At the same time, they have developed the knowledge to create goods for their own growing "middle class". One of their goals is to increase domestic consumption. As the years continue to go by, more and more of the world's resources are going to be going to China, for the good of the Chinese. There is a reason that the Chinese are playing such an active role in Africa.

    21. Re:But... by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 1

      I honestly do not know about the MI6, but I positively know that the CIA participated in actions which very directly resulting in quite catastrophic consequences for human rights activists here in Latin America...

    22. Re:But... by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's botnets running on government computers in most countries, China is probably not an exception. I'm not saying they didn't do it, just that IPs are not complete proof.

      Nor does it have to be. China's government is screwed either way. If they claim they are not the attackers, but were working from owned machines, then their "perfection" and "infallibility" are gone. Given the inherent insecurity in authoritarian cocknozzles, that will hurt them where they live.

      OTOH, if they don't cop to being hacked themselves, they have no other defense to being the source of the attacks.

      Either way, they've gotten taken down a notch (and I bet you they are PISSED about it), and I'm betting that our own cocknozzles in DC are hoping they opt for the second approach. Nothing heavy will come from it, but we'll get a few more of their chips in the big game.

    23. Re:But... by kestasjk · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Weird how far you have to scroll down to see this message, after all the conspiracy theories etc. The real question is how do they know this is the Chinese government and not a bunch of hacktivists or whatever they call themselves.

      The McDonalds website was defaced a few years ago removing Taiwan being listed as a separate country from China, but does that mean Hu himself authorized the vandalism or was it some nationalist?
      I think we really need more evidence than "it came from China, so it must be the Chinese government".

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    24. Re:But... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      I can understand how "We can't enforce copyright on software and music when we're busy lifting hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty as a developing nation" works but I can't understand how "We need to arrest and persecute human rights activists because we're a developing nation" works.

      Human rights might get in conflict with economic growth, for example because without child labour you don't get cheap enough, or because you'd reduce your profits if you'd have to care that people don't get ill because of your poisonous waste ...

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    25. Re:But... by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only the dudes in dinghies say that.

    26. Re:But... by It'sVersusItsGuy · · Score: 1

      Haha, of course what you really ought to say is "I'm a stupid person who doesn't pay attention." As you probably know, the word "its" is the possessive of "it." You obviously intended to use the word "it's," which is a contraction of the words "it is." Hacking the language does not help Slashdot develop its readers, so please be more careful from now on.

      --
      - Tweaking the ears of the grammatically challenged since 2002.
    27. Re:But... by Yamata+no+Orochi · · Score: 1

      I'd say the Chinese government is responsible for the actions of Chinese government computers regardless of whether or not it's deliberate or due to their neglectful use of said computers.

    28. Re:But... by ydrol · · Score: 1

      Google just dropped in share price AND embroiled in international posturing with China AND is a tech company - I'd like to think they did their homework first!

    29. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      obviously mother gulag profits
      -matt

    30. Re:But... by tokenshi · · Score: 1

      Well put. They vacillate between "super power" and "developing nation" depending on the argument... If seeking praise or authority, the former obviously.

      I think google's first order of business is to make sure that when skynet goes online, China is taken out first.

    31. Re:But... by tokenshi · · Score: 1

      But most of the botnets are Chinese anyhow, so...

    32. Re:But... by Velorium · · Score: 1

      Yes but when you consider the surrounding nature of everyone who was being hacked, a botnet theory becomes less plausible.

    33. Re:But... by Aeros · · Score: 1

      im sure that not every single detail is in that article. Especially if it's an ongoing investigation.

    34. Re:But... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 1

      Or explain that we ignorant Westerners "don't understand the Chinese culture" and are trying to foist our beliefs on them by objecting to their breaking into American servers.

      This is a major international incident. I hope the State department chooses to treat it as such.

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    35. Re:But... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 2

      Works great if you're a stand up comedian.

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    36. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's good for the powers that be in China. China is repeating its history, screw the countryside for the powerful in the cities. Now they are going to have an over-population of males and small neighbors with poor governments, small militaries and lots of resources.

    37. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "based on designs and with processes stolen from American and Japanese manufacturing firms."

      Welcome to the rest of the world. The Americans do to the EU and vice versa, the Japnese as well, the Germans, the S. Americans.... That's par for course--no new news here, we steal, they steal, the UN "tries" to enforce, but it's all politics in the end. Just that China is a huge volume of customers just coming online all a once is something the world hasn't encountered.

    38. Re:But... by VirginMary · · Score: 1

      I honestly do not know about the MI6, but I positively know that the CIA participated in actions which very directly resulting in quite catastrophic consequences for human rights activists here in Latin America...

      I was aware of that and that the CIA was involved in toppling of democratically elected governments, too. Evil scumbags!

      --
      When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
    39. Re:But... by jzhos · · Score: 1

      Because China is evil, so we just know they are the one behind all the internet hacking to US company/government/military sites

    40. Re:But... by jzhos · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Right, that is why Google steals copyright from Chinese writers and publishers.

    41. Re:But... by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      They'll do well, due primarily to their size but China will never out pace the west unless it starts fostering creative/free thinking among it's populace. It can build, it can't create. It can steal, it can't discover. And yes I know it's not as black and white as that but I feel it illustrates the point I am trying to convey as to the self limiting governmental, societal and cultural restrictions they impose on themselves.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    42. Re:But... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 1

      There is a reason that the Chinese are playing such an active role in Africa.

      Don't forget South America.

    43. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture. All of the games that people play have been played, observed and pondered in China for A LONG TIME.

      I always thought that the Great Leap Forward seemed way ahead of its time, and now I know why.

    44. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That... or they'll just blame it on their status as a "developing nation" and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else."

      If you're referring to the Kyoto Protocol, the arrangement was for an obvious reason: the already-fully-industrialized countries didn't have any relevant standards for over 100 years before deciding that something might have to be done about CO2 emissions. At which point it would kind of suck to be in the middle of the process of industrialization (China, India, others), only to be told "You can't do the same thing we already did for the last century or so." The idea was for the already-industrialized countries to change their long-established behavior and demonstrate to the "developing nations" that it could be done, and then those "developing nations" would be obligated to follow suit -- i.e. to be held to the same standard as everyone else.

      Instead, we didn't do much of anything, so they can go full steam ahead, just like we already did in the past. If it's any consolation, that would mean we're being held to the same standards now. The same ineffective and potentially dangerous standard if anthropogenic global warming is the concern some people think it is.

      None of this negates the observation that foreign businesses in China are treated unfairly, and aren't able to do business on an even playing field, contrary to the bogus claims of the Chinese government. The corruption is real. However, it means the comparison you were making wasn't a good one. If China has it's own laws, but selectively enforces them on foreign versus domestic countries or the government breaks them itself to gain an advantage for domestic companies, it's a rather different story from international agreements where a different treatment of countries was intended.

      The situation is simple. IF the Chinese government or its agents are behind this, it is a flagrant violation of domestic and international law. Why should Google have to put up with that or stay quiet about it?

    45. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. copyright infringement and theft of IP is not a problem for China as they are a major benefactor of IP theft and industrial espionage.
      2. human rights activists are a major source of government decent

      It is in best interest of Chinese government to jail all forms of decent. Anything that is prescribed as bad by the government is the moral law. Hence recently they are cracking down on porn and anyone against the crackdown is therefore anti-gov't therefore anti-China. It is not that porn has negative influence, but it is another means to separate the "free thinkers" from the "collective".

      Anyway, all the "anti-human rights" laws in China are simply directed to identify the non-compliant subjects. The ones that are likely to decent and alter the status quo.

      Keep in mind these anti-decent laws exist in western countries too. But decent is much more tolerated.

    46. Re:But... by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

      Either way, they've gotten taken down a notch (and I bet you they are PISSED about it), and I'm betting that our own cocknozzles in DC are hoping they opt for the second approach. Nothing heavy will come from it, but we'll get a few more of their chips in the big game.

      But at the same time they will be doing everything to save face. They will be carefully trying to decide how to handle the impertinence that is Google.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    47. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, you're right, there's no proof. It might not have been the Chinese government. I'm sure there are dozens of other organisations with government-scale resources and a high level of interest in accessing the personal communications of people whose only common factor is that they oppose the Chinese government.

    48. Re:But... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture.

      There is a very obvious way to turn your words around. Since no-one did it, I guess I'll have to.

      If they have a culture that's so much more ancient than Western one, and they're so smart, then why aren't they the ones who, effectively, rule the planet? Why aren't they the ones with 2/3 of the global military power? Why isn't their flag on the Moon? Why their life expectancy is lower, and their birth mortality is higher?

      Why they have been, by and large, ordered aroung by Western younglings for the last few centuries?

      Or could it be that they, as a culture, have long aged beyond their prime time, and are now deep into "get off my lawn" stage?..

    49. Re:But... by trancemission · · Score: 0

      That... or they'll just blame it on their status as a "developing nation" and that they shouldn't be held to the same standards as everyone else.

      Their still in beta

    50. Re:But... by LarrySDonald · · Score: 1

      The same standard as everyone else sucks, including for everyone else. Figure out a standard that works. Fair price for innovation, fair price for production. Right now, neither is - the US isn't using Vaseline (TM) on how things are produced, but happy to complain about what IP get made. Equally, China, as much of the area, isn't that interested in paying obscene patent fees. And while anything is underground you might as well shove it underground all the way - products made at gunpoint and zero worry about what is legal. Go to your room. Both of you. No, really, STFU. I won't hear a word more until you both can behave like adults.

    51. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture. All of the games that people play have been played, observed and pondered in China for A LONG TIME.

      Oi vey! The Chinese year 4707 is 5770 in the Jewish calendar. The west as an even more ANCIENT culture. We win!

    52. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Augh, my eyes! The word is dissent! It's the opposite of consent.

    53. Re:But... by anaesthetica · · Score: 1

      How sure are we this whole article isn't propaganda (from the Lizard People)? /Trust no one

    54. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a fact. The Chinese have planned this attack for over 3000 years!

    55. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either way, they've gotten taken down a notch (and I bet you they are PISSED about it), and I'm betting that our own cocknozzles in DC are hoping they opt for the second approach. Nothing heavy will come from it, but we'll get a few more of their chips in the big game.

      Yeah! Our cocknozzles vs. their cocknozzles! Go team!!!

    56. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >>Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707

      Only because they didn't arbitrarily reset their dating when some guy managed to convince a bunch of guys that he used to know the king of the universe...

      Actually, now that I think about it, maybe we should just go with what you said.

    57. Re:But... by magores · · Score: 1

      I dunno. In a way, "decent" works here too.

    58. Re:But... by CarbonShell · · Score: 1

      Taiwan? The same country that China wants to reintroduce into the PRC and thus are more western friendly?

      Isn't it strange that such attacks often go over exactly THAT group of people you have a conflict with?

      Or maybe they just originated in Taiwan.

    59. Re:But... by CarbonShell · · Score: 1

      That is a little biased. The Chinese cannot do this? Are they missing some additive in their water or is their lack of massive cheeseburger & coffee consumption the reason?

      China used our greed and blindness to basically just cheat their way ahead. Instead of reinventing everything, they copied it.

      Same thing everyone else has done since the dawn of time.
      Everything is based off of the work of someone else.

      Another example would be India who went from developing country to one of the IT leaders in the world (though fundamentally still a developing country). Not because they reinvented IT, but because they took what was currently available and learned from that.

    60. Re:But... by cparker15 · · Score: 1

      I wonder who says that... certainly not someone with a large ship!

      --
      Have you driven a fnord... lately?

      You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.

  3. and... by tangelogee · · Score: 0

    ...dun dun duuuuuuunnnnnn... (cheesy cliffhanger music)

  4. To quote Iago . . . by Tanman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oh there's a big surprise! That's an incredible - I think I'm going to have a heart attack and die of not surprise!

  5. can't say i'm surprised by jacktherobot · · Score: 2

    now that its clear that the attackers were government agents the question is what will the US state department do.

    1. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Cornwallis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nothing.

    2. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Nerdfest · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'd hope that this would be nice nice wake-up call to companies to use proper security procedures, but I'm guessing nothing will change.

    3. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Xest · · Score: 2, Funny

      I dunno, give them some credit, Hillary Clinton might talk at them again. I'm sure they'll care deeply about that.

    4. Re:can't say i'm surprised by oodaloop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure we'll respond with the same resolute and determined stance as we did with the Christmas Day Bomber.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    5. Re:can't say i'm surprised by eleuthero · · Score: 2, Informative

      The trade deficit through China is still in our favor - appears to be over 200 billion if I was looking at the right website. China has a great deal of clout but so do we - restrictions on trade with China would hurt it way more than it would hurt us (even if everything in Walmart seems to come from China, the deficit is still in our favor and maybe we won't even have to deal with cadmium-poisoned kids as a result).

    6. Re:can't say i'm surprised by jwinster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This same thing has been said for a long time. The fact is in the majority of companies (Google/Defense industry excepted), is that security is the first area of a company to get hacked to bits. So I don't think it's so much a procedural issue as much as it is a fundamental problem with visibility. The only time security workers get noticed is when something goes wrong, because when nothing bad happens, it just looks to management like they're not doing anything yet taking a good portion of their budget. All that said, you're probably right, nothing will change.

      --
      Q.E.D.
    7. Re:can't say i'm surprised by system1111 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Private companies, private matters right? Thats my first thoughts for sure when I think of something like this. But when you think about it where is the line? Where is the line when its one nation is funding and fostering corperate espionage against companies of another nation. When does some like this become an "economic" attack when doesn't it. If it deemed an attack on the economics of one nation whet kind of defenses or protocols do we have? I don't know the answers and I'm not saying its the case here but it certainly questions I think governments are going to ask themselves as these types of attacks become more and more public

    8. Re:can't say i'm surprised by dnoyeb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What did China do when they found all the bugs the US government put in the plane we sold them?

      Nothing.
      http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/20/news/mn-23796

    9. Re:can't say i'm surprised by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      now that its clear that the attackers were government agents the question is what will the US state department do.

      The State Department will talk—that's what the State Department exists to do.

      For anything beyond that, there are other agencies.

    10. Re:can't say i'm surprised by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      Well aside for a complete implosion of the economy and the dollar collapsing to be worth nothing, yeah it won't hurt at all!

    11. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Not much we can do; we are no longer the dominant economic superpower; China will soon surpass us. About the only we really can do is ask them nicely to use a little Vaseline next time.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    12. Re:can't say i'm surprised by eleuthero · · Score: 1

      I am not suggesting that we stop all trade immediately (that would be an interesting ethical situation since it would be appropriate to do so because of Chinese labor abuses but cause significant depredations in both countries as a result). Increasing tariffs does lead to escalation on both sides but specific talks can minimize the negative impact - and there will likely be some negative impact on our side. "Punishment" / Deterrence on a global scale will always have negative impacts to all parties involved. At issue is, can we find a solution with a less negative impact than the current one (large US companies worth billions having their infrastructure violated / potentially stolen)?

    13. Re:can't say i'm surprised by maxume · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ridiculous. Both the EU and the U.S. have much larger economies than China. We are witnessing them gaining some footing, not taking over.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    14. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, really. A foreign nation engaging in espionage? Holy crap, stop the presses! Nobody in history has ever done anything like this ever before! *cough*

    15. Re:can't say i'm surprised by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the "Christmas Bomber" is in prison right now, being prosecuted, and probably, at the end of the day, going to prison for a large number of years. I doubt the Chinese will help us do the same thing to their "warriors". Or did you just fumble a rather irrelevant (and stupid) slam against the current administration?

      --
      That is all.
    16. Re:can't say i'm surprised by oodaloop · · Score: 1

      I was referring to the too-late too-little tepid response from Obama that failed to acknowledge that he was even a terrorist or it had anything to do with Islam, jihad, etc. The only fumble was I had to explain the joke.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    17. Re:can't say i'm surprised by ArundelCastle · · Score: 1

      The most intriguing thing about that article is the Brookings expert they interviewed, "Bates Gill". ISYN.

    18. Re:can't say i'm surprised by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Funny

      What did China do when they found all the bugs the US government put in the plane we sold them?

      They debugged it?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    19. Re:can't say i'm surprised by N8F8 · · Score: 1

      Unless you count that incident as a response to the Chinese forcing our EP-3 to land on
      Chinese territory then reverse engineering all our equipment.

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1769642.stm

      --
      "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
    20. Re:can't say i'm surprised by iammani · · Score: 1

      Note the date of this article, 2002. It would be different scenario if it had happened today.

    21. Re:can't say i'm surprised by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of a story I read about during the cold war, when the US built their embassy in Russia, they did it with American labor, but the materials came from Russia. Russian spies couldn't resist the opportunity, and built bugs into the building materials. Seems they got away with it for a while, but when the US rebuilt their embassy, they imported all the materials as well.

      --
      Qxe4
    22. Re:can't say i'm surprised by It'sVersusItsGuy · · Score: 1

      "Now that its clear" is what?? You're confounding me with your meaningless poetic phrases! But perhaps you made a typo. You see the word "its" is the possessive of "it." You obviously intended to use the word "it's," which is a contraction of the words "it is." The only question now is what the Grammar Police will do to you.

      --
      - Tweaking the ears of the grammatically challenged since 2002.
    23. Re:can't say i'm surprised by labradore · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Want to stimulate the economy and bring jobs back? Announce that as of next month all imported goods and services are goods and services are required to be produced under the same regime of labor laws, environmental protection regulation, product safety standards, liability laws and accounting standards used by US companies. Any company that wants to sell to US markets must be accessible to US investors. Anything not meeting these standards will be subject to a tariff that will begin at 10% and escalate by 1% each month until the 200% tariff rate is reached. There's no reason why we should lose the quality of life that our parents, grandparents and the generations before them worked and fought for just because someone somewhere else can cut corners and externalize costs to make things cheaper. We are losing everything because we are compromising our standards for marginally cheaper products and service.

      One major reason that health care is growing to such a huge percentage of our expenses is that it is a service that is not exportable and relies mainly on products and technologies that are highly developed and thus only come from the developed world where things are expensive. Everything is cheap in China: Goods, services and lives are all had for a pittance. If we fail to rely on our own industry in our own regime of regulation, we will ultimately reduce the value of what we own and who we are to the same level as the Chinese or the Cambodians or the Malaysians or whoever else pops up as the next country stable enough to build factories in to exploit wage slaves and ruin the local lands and seas. China has had a tremendous stimulus by sucking the money out of us for over 20 years. They will have the rest of the world to as their market and they will have most of our technology to use to continue their ascension. Without the tidal wave of money flowing from our coffers, they will have to figure out how to grow in organic, sustainable ways and how to do it without outlandishly rewarding their upper class while exploiting their lower classes. They may even decide that the one-party system isn't all it's cracked up to be. Whatever happens will be better for us and better for them. We wont have lead or cadmium infested toys and jewelry. We won't have toxic drywall, or deadly dried milk or malware-infected routers. If we don't wake up and start doing this, we're going to have to stop trying to live in a developed nation with all of the rules and regulations that we put upon ourselves because no one is going to be able to afford it. You're about to travel to the third world. Just sit back on your couch and watch the decent continue. When you go out the front door in 10 years. It will be your neighborhood. Thank you George, Bill, George and Barak.

    24. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Is this the norm now?

      The 2 superpowers basically back-stab one another, and each just shrugs it off as business as usual? THAT is how International relations and business is going to continue flourishing?

      This reeks of the powers that be maintaining a nice 'unstable' environment, just enough to put off 'social progress' for either side. On the U.S., see the opposite that is going on now... withering of rights, financially, as well as personal, and 'basic rights' still being suppressed in China.

      Sadly, this sort of thing will be dealt with using kid-gloves and what amounts to a slightly louder than usual verbal warning. I hope the International Business community takes a good long look at this, and heeds the warning. China, no matter what the opportunity, is not a viable scenario for business.

    25. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Asklepius+M.D. · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're right. A much better response would be to stir up a holiday panic over the failed antics of a none-too-bright criminal. Oh wait...I mean a highly skilled international assassin who "almost" singlehandedly destroyed mom, baseball, and apple pie... Yep, I agree....there's a gang of "bad guys" who tried to kill us 9 years ago, who suddenly want to kill us "more" since we've swapped out Prez Tweedledee for Prez Tweedledum, and who are simultaneously smart enough to whip up a bio weapon in their kitchen while managing to be dumb enough to be detained in an airport security line for making a joke or buying a one-way ticket. Then, as now, we should lay the blame for the existence of these bad guys, the existence of all evil, and the poor self esteem we picked up in high school on one guy who's held office for a year rather than the several hundred who've held office for 50.... Now stop making rational arguments while I go back to living in Fear (of them, of us, it doesn't matter as long as I'm scared....except for driving on busted up roads in a 4 year old car on my way to the nearest gun range to film a jackass-style stunt to post on myspace to impress this guy who follows my twitter feed who finally wants to meet.......that doesn't scare me at all).

      --
      He who would be a man, must be a nonconformist. -- Emerson
    26. Re:can't say i'm surprised by It'sVersusItsGuy · · Score: 1

      This is probably the least of your grammatical worries, my friend, but it's my solemn duty to inform you that the word "its" is the possessive of "it." You obviously intended to use the word "it's," which is a contraction of the words "it is." As for your egregious spelling and run-on sentences, perhaps someone with a stronger stomach than myself will come along to help you.

      --
      - Tweaking the ears of the grammatically challenged since 2002.
    27. Re:can't say i'm surprised by system1111 · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the heads up friend! But alas I am well aware of my inability to conquer the English language grammatically. I just simply don't care. =) However I replied to say it brightens my day to know that I have made you feel just a bit better about yourself because you are able to point out my flaws! Truly a noble endeavor. Thank you again for your contribution to this discussion, my way of thought, and in fact the world at large.

    28. Re:can't say i'm surprised by smallfries · · Score: 1

      Who was that? Did he attack on the same day as the Underpants Bomber?

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
    29. Re:can't say i'm surprised by aclarke · · Score: 1

      I agree. If we "just" (I know it's harder than it sounds) rank countries on their environmental standards and impose an environmental tariff on all imported goods, that would be a good start. Goods imported from, say, Sweden would be given a 1x tariff. Goods from China would be given a 3x tariff. Suddenly that $5 Chinese doll in Walmart would be $20, with $15 going towards an environmental cleanup fund or something. Sure, every country would complain that their tariff was unfairly calculated, but whatever.

      Lets not let the environment, and our children and grandchildren, pay for our greed and shortsightedness. I'm all for lifting up the world's and not just our own standards of living, but we're not paying the full cost of our decisions.

    30. Re:can't say i'm surprised by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      If china isn't exporting as much to us, then there is less upward pressure on the value of the yuan.

      Which means they don't need to buy as many dollars to artificially keep the exchange rate pseudo-pegged.

      Which means they don't buy as many US treasuries.

      Which means either interests rates rise on treasuries and government can't afford to pay it's mega-ARM or the Fed prints the difference.

      Which means the US dollar collapses.

      It's the slower version of China dumping all its treasuries on the open market tomorrow.

      Basically the US can't afford to do anything about such things. China has, essentially, won already.

    31. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...Bates Gill, a China expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington...

      Really? Is this an Onion or an LA times article?

    32. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      With Hillary Clinton in charge, they'll probably try to censor rated 'M' video games.

    33. Re:can't say i'm surprised by locallyunscene · · Score: 1

      Why would he give terrorist organizations publicity/legitimacy/proof they were reaching their goals? The more he spazzed out about it locked down all flying or whatever you expected him to do the more the "terrorists win". A calm measured response condemning the people that failed their jobs and letting everyone else do their jobs made the most sense.

    34. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. They hacked you back. All your base are belong to them.

      Where did all those schematics for the F-35 go to? Oh, thats right....

    35. Re:can't say i'm surprised by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

      I was referring to the too-late too-little tepid response from Obama that failed to acknowledge that he was even a terrorist or it had anything to do with Islam, jihad, etc.

      Well, he responded more quickly than the former Idiot-in-Chief did with the "Shoe Bomber" (two vs. six days) and he did state that intelligence mistakes were made and quickly held inquiries and issued a report saying why things were missed (something that was never acknowledged or looked into by - again - former Idiot-in-Chief). And, of course, you're right that he didn't say that he was a terrorist (one of the signs of an intelligent person is that they don't feel a need to state the obvious) and that he didn't actually tar an entire religion with the brush of the actions of only a few (because that's always helped us so well in the past), but most of us think that's actually a good thing.

      The only fumble was I had to explain the joke.

      I guess if I had your "sense of humor", I wouldn't be surprised that most people didn't get it. If you think you're going to be funny with material like this, you should try to get a job writing jokes for Dennis Miller. Otherwise, you could watch a little less Glenn Beck and end up a bit funnier to normal people.

      --
      That is all.
    36. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Eu is not a country, really! Keeping this in mind PRC is no3 or no2 in GDP.

      --
      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
    37. Re:can't say i'm surprised by maxume · · Score: 1

      It is increasingly a cohesive economy.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    38. Re:can't say i'm surprised by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      When another state attacks your citizens, it's no longer a private matter.

      And private corporations are just legal fiction around a bunch of citizens (for the most part, anyway).

    39. Re:can't say i'm surprised by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      EU is not a country, really!

      It's a very tightly-knit economic alliance. For purpose of evaluating GDP, there's no good reason not to consider it as a single entity.

    40. Re:can't say i'm surprised by vbraga · · Score: 2, Informative

      China dumping their treasuries ain't all that bad.

      --
      English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
    41. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Shihar · · Score: 1

      Your argument is nonsense and anyone who has even scratched economic history knows it. The number of times when massive tariffs have lead to anything other than skyrocketing the cost of goods, shortages, rationing, a general decrease in the standard of living and purchasing power, and economic depression can be count on one hand, and each of those involved an economy that was already more or less protected before the tariffs were installed and filled with rural peasents. For the US, a nation wildly dependent upon exports and imports, to declare a 200% tariff on all products from any place that isn't the EU would lead to one of the most devastating trade wars this world has ever seen and make 1929 look like a field day. Unless you are feudal Japan trying to build an industrial base from poor peasantry, protectionism doesn't work.

      I don't think you even begin to comprehend how "global" the US economy is. That computer you are staring blankly at was made, at a bare minimum , in 50 countries. The components that make up that computer have crossed national lines literally thousands of times. There are thousands of companies involved in designing, building, and putting all of the components together. The US couldn't build that thing from scratch if it wanted to. We literally don't have enough labor or resources to do it. Only a fool of epic proportions would reach in with some absurd tariff and ensure that the cost of a PC (much less any other device more complex than a stick) would have its cost jump to the levels seen on good old protectionist USSR.

    42. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      My recollection is that the US never occupied that embassy, because of all the bugs. They didn't believe they could be certain that they would have gotten them all.

    43. Re:can't say i'm surprised by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

      4th, Japan is still larger. And they are not close to either the EU or US which are 3-4 times larger.

    44. Re:can't say i'm surprised by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      Sure if you like inflation in the triple digits, it'd be just wonderful.

      Israel isn't a good comparison they run a small trade deficit (as opposed to a damn huge one) and have a positive current account balance (as opposed to a huge negative one).Their reserves are also larger than their foreign debt, so they could actually pay back their loans without having to borrow yet more money (whereas the US has to roll over its debt - the US does have the huge advantage that its debt is in US dollars and they can just print it up tomorrow if they wanted too).

    45. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Chuffpole · · Score: 1

      Bugs - that's exactly what they would have expected.

      The US should have placed NO bugs in there whatsoever - that would have had the Chinese really worried :)

    46. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " Bates Gill, a China expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, predicted that the surveillance effort, if true, "would not have any lasting effect," especially because the bugs seem to have been discovered before Jiang used the plane. "

      Bates Gill eh? Sure sounds like an anagram of Bill Gates to me.

    47. Re:can't say i'm surprised by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 1

      Ok, while reading BBC today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8471613.stm
      "China's economy grew by 8.7% in 2009, setting it on course to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest."
      care to comment? I believe unless you use an artificial trick to count all EU countries as a single entitty China is now #2.

      --
      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
  6. Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I for one welcome our new asian overlords!!!

    1. Re:Overloards by jellomizer · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You do... I don't... I am sorry. China's success is based on them slowly taking elements of our culture combined with the fact that they have a country with the worlds highest population Having about a billion more people then the United States (300 million) occupying the same geographical size, and having many of the same resources. The question isn't wow look how strong china is, it is why isn't china so much more powerful. It is because their government/culture doesn't work well.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 0

      their government/culture doesn't work well.

      When your government/culture will have been at it for a few thousand years, you'll have a point.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    3. Re:Overloards by Anpheus · · Score: 1

      They're a developing nation, that's all. They were late to the industrial revolution, they were late to the computer revolution--although other nations had been using them for cheap labor, they lacked internal expertise in the technology. They're just late, is all.

      Their GDP per capita is growing and will continue growing and will likely plateau like ours did, barring any new revolution in business.

    4. Re:Overloards by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The government/culture of The People's Republic of China has only been in existence for about 70 years. Before that, it was the nationalistic Republic of China for about 35 years. And before that, it was an hereditary monarchy or thousands of year.

      Maybe you should pick up a history book some time.

      --
      There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
    5. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've got it wrong. The Chinese culture formed during and is optimized for pre-Industrial lifestyles. The amount of time it's been around is actually HURTING, not helping.

    6. Re:Overloards by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      The current Chinese government has only been at it for about 60 years.

    7. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 0, Troll

      The government/culture of The People's Republic of China has only been in existence for about 70 years. Before that, it was the nationalistic Republic of China for about 35 years. And before that, it was an hereditary monarchy or thousands of year.

      Maybe you should pick up a history book some time.

      Maybe you should read your own post. Their culture goes back farther than the current government, and you type too well for me to conclude that you're too stupid to understand that.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    8. Re:Overloards by Spatial · · Score: 1

      He's talking about how their culture and government are doing in this era. Age hasn't got anything to do with it. Neither has his culture got anything to do with the accuracy of his evaluation.

      I don't really agree with him and I'm interested in hearing opposing viewpoints. But I'm not interested in hearing stupid bullshit that attacks the arguer and ignores the argument. Just saying.

    9. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seeing as how Mao was the first chairman of the PRC, it doesn't seem plausible that the Chinese have been using the same form of government for a few thousand years. And while they do retain traditions that have existed for said time period, all culture is highly dynamic and I highly doubt the Chinese of today retain the same cultural values that existed in 1900 much less 1 CE.

    10. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      The current Chinese government has only been at it for about 60 years.

      The GP shouldn't have questioned the value of their culture if he wanted to limit his thoughts to that timeframe.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    11. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our goverment as been around longer than China's current government - which is what I believe the previous poster is referring to.

    12. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have it half right. The culture has been at it for a long time. Government, not so much. The chinese government in it's current form has only been around for 50 years or so. And actually, the culture itself is largely new considering the vast razing of artifacts, history, and ways of life that occurred during the cultural revolution. In comparison, the US (and other democratic nations) are actually older and have shown more resiliency and more consistent economic success than China.

    13. Re:Overloards by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Western culture goes back to the ancient Greeks, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and even Egyptians. It is extremely likely that Western culture and Chinese culture share a lot of similar roots, and they definitely did a lot of cultural trading throughout the millennia. So clearly you are not referring to culture with your 'few thousand years' statement.

      As for the current government, it's only been around for sixty or so. During that time they killed millions with famine caused specifically by poor government policy (the great leap forward: people were literally eating their own children. It was horrible). Then they killed and tortured millions more, in the temper tantrum of the youth known as the Cultural Revolution. This was once again encouraged and caused by poor government policy.

      Furthermore, I don't think I need to go over all the things the government currently does that violates human rights. Let's just say when the torch came to San Francisco, protesters had to color coordinate so they could keep track of what exactly they were protesting.

      --
      Qxe4
    14. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      He's talking about how their culture and government are doing in this era.

      Better than ever, by all accounts.

      Age hasn't got anything to do with it. Neither has his culture got anything to do with the accuracy of his evaluation.

      If his culture is tinted with jingoism, making him spew nationalistic prattle, it has a lot to do with it.

      I don't really agree with him and I'm interested in hearing opposing viewpoints. But I'm not interested in hearing stupid bullshit that attacks the arguer and ignores the argument. Just saying.

      Then you shouldn't be happy that his ignorant bile gets modded up, nor should you be defending it.

      And BTW, thanks for calling my reply "stupid bullshit", it really illustrate just how much you hate it when people attack the arguer and how much you value opposing viewpoints. Just saying.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    15. Re:Overloards by dave562 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you need to give the Chinese more credit. As you've said, they have a billion more people than we do, yet those people are living on a similar sized landmass with similar resources. If there were a billion more people in America tomorrow, you can bet your ass that the interests on Wall Street would be aligned with Washington and implementing some serious production and other controls on the population. Look at what a big deal illegal immigration is. Americans are already stingy with resources and concerned about maintaining vague notions like "quality of life" for naturalized citizens. You can bet your ass that if there were a billion more people here, we'd have a Politburo like organization doing whatever was necessary to maintain their status while at the same time doing everything necessary to prevent a full on social uprising.

      If you think China's government isn't effective, you have a very narrow view of the world. Spend a few hours researching what China is up to in Africa, and then contrast that with how well our State and Defense Departments are doing in that part of the world. Take a look at who is winning oil contracts in Iraq... Here, I'll save you the work (http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/05/news/international/iraq_oil/index.htm .. http://moneymorning.com/2008/08/22/china-iraq/) The Chinese don't have "terrorists" attacking their homeland because of misguided foreign policy blunders (warning, potential red herring).

    16. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Western culture goes back to the ancient Greeks, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and even Egyptians.

      The whole of western culture VS one nation's culture? Apples and orange.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    17. Re:Overloards by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      Hardly, or do you think Western culture and beliefs were created in 1776?

    18. Re:Overloards by ljgshkg · · Score: 1

      In fact, the government/culture of the current PRC is probably younger than PRC itself. Likely just some 30 something years. The Cultural Revolution is not very long (in the time line of history), but had huge negative impact in the culture afterward. And then the people born in the 80's and 90's also have quite a different culture because of their "starting point" (hence early experience) in (their) history.

    19. Re:Overloards by CAIMLAS · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, China

      The reason China is able to compete is because of a handful factors:

      * Enslavement/enticement of foreign countries to utilize their natural resources (see: Africa)
      * Cheap-as-fuck labor
      * Wanton IP theft
      * A docile populace
      * Totalitarian state able to push all this through to the populace
      * UN complicity towards Chinese abuse of standards which everyone else "has" to abide by. (See: pollution/global warming crap)

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    20. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he meant that China has a distinct culture which can be seen throughout all of their forms of government over the past thousand years.

    21. Re:Overloards by mosb1000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, I was about to make a really rude and sarcastic comment here, but I won't.

      Western culture began in the ancient Mediterranean thousands of years ago. You would find most aspects of modern western culture in ancient Greece, but a lot of it was around even before that. The major elements are government by representative democracy, the rule of law and emphasis on scientific legalism (I don't know what else to call it) in the fields of science and philosophy. Also the belief in the right to personal liberty for land owning males remains intact even today. Your claim that western culture is young is patently absurd.

      You're trying to make a comparison between the age of the USA and the age of eastern culture. That comparison makes no sense.

    22. Re:Overloards by Spatial · · Score: 1

      And BTW, thanks for calling my reply "stupid bullshit", it really illustrate just how much you hate it when people attack the arguer and how much you value opposing viewpoints. Just saying.

      There's a difference between attacking the arguer alongside the argument and attacking only the arguer. You were doing the latter: the post was an ad hominem.

      I gave my reasons criticising your position, and then in addition slung some dung at the class of argument you used. I didn't even mention you.

      I only hate it when the arguer is exclusively criticised because it's a fallacy and I'm sick of hearing the same shit from grade school to government. But I haven't made that error here, and even if I had, my hypocrisy wouldn't make my arguing against it invalid. It would just make me annoying.

    23. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But they've completely changed government and social styles numerous times in those years. They're easily not the same China they were thousand of years ago.

      By that token, U.S. culture can easily be traced back and attached to England's, as they were still colonists of England when the Mayflower landed, and just endured government and social changes as time went on. And England's can be traced back to the Roman Empire, and...

    24. Re:Overloards by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

      China has fallen under foreign control several times, most notably with the Manchus and Mongols. You could also argue they were a colony of sorts for Western imperial powers from the 1700s up until the early part of the 20th century.

      They certainly have a resilient culture, but their government has gone down in flames many times.

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    25. Re:Overloards by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      History books are fabricated by the government!!!

      Didn't 9/11 teach you anything?

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    26. Re:Overloards by denobug · · Score: 1

      You only counted that the Chinese culture has a lineage of a few thousand years. Have you check on the actual lineage of the government itself? How many nations, even empires, that has been founded and died in the same time frame? Perhaps no one has taught you yet that one sure thing in Chinese history is the fact that history tends to repeats itself because we make same mistakes over and over again. We have not yet began a discussion on all political tensions, rifts, riots, and revolts that has happened through out the ages of time. One thing it really says is that the same regime don't last forever. That's Chinese History for you.

      But then, there's the Cultural Revolutions. It was suppose to cure "all ills of old cultures". So did the government/culture of PRC really in existence for thousands of years? You be the judge (after you actually did your homework).

    27. Re:Overloards by denobug · · Score: 1

      The current Chinese government has only been at it for about 60 years.

      The GP shouldn't have questioned the value of their culture if he wanted to limit his thoughts to that timeframe.

      Through your numerous reply of the same thing. I can only conclude that you are biased and not listening what other slashdotter is trying to point out here. Your opinion is not constructive for the conversation of the topic. I wish I have the mod points to mod you down to avoid another reader wasting their time on your posts.

    28. Re:Overloards by denobug · · Score: 1

      He's talking about how their culture and government are doing in this era.

      Better than ever, by all accounts.

      Age hasn't got anything to do with it. Neither has his culture got anything to do with the accuracy of his evaluation.

      If his culture is tinted with jingoism, making him spew nationalistic prattle, it has a lot to do with it.

      I don't really agree with him and I'm interested in hearing opposing viewpoints. But I'm not interested in hearing stupid bullshit that attacks the arguer and ignores the argument. Just saying.

      Then you shouldn't be happy that his ignorant bile gets modded up, nor should you be defending it.

      And BTW, thanks for calling my reply "stupid bullshit", it really illustrate just how much you hate it when people attack the arguer and how much you value opposing viewpoints. Just saying.

      While we are on topic on Chinese spying, are you one of those poster Chinese government owned droids trolling the internet posts for a good fight? Seriously I've seen many of them on many news site's discussion board. You are the first one that are so balatently apparent on your intention here at slashdot.

      The vocabulary you uses are not of typical of English speaking person would use. Rather I sense you either type in Chinese and then have the reply translated by a computer (are you using Google's language tool for the translation?), or you have an electronic Chinese/English dictionary rigth in front of you.

      We slashdot readers are technology centric people who cares about technology as well as the humanities in general around us. I don't think we really like to parade a particular nation for its virtues (just look at how much fun we have with the American government and businesses). We have good discussions on what is fair, and what is not. We are stongly opinionated, but we tend to respect each other's point. I think you should read the help section of the Slashdot's forum before posting any more and make a fool out of yourself.

    29. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure they do... Please google for Muslim terrorists in China and you will find enlightenment.

    30. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Your claim that western culture is young is patently absurd.

      I made no such claim.

      Maybe you could stop being an idiot for a sec and see if I was replying to a claim about Pan-Asian culture, or a claim to a single country's culture? Then, perhaps, you could muster up some brain cells to try to see if equivocting claims of one country VS one hemisphere is absurd?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    31. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Hardly, or do you think Western culture and beliefs were created in 1776?

      No, but I think you're not intelligent enough to tell the difference between a hemisphere and a country.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    32. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      While we are on topic on Chinese spying, are you one of those poster Chinese government owned droids trolling the internet posts for a good fight? Seriously I've seen many of them on many news site's discussion board.

      Yes, and I'm doing it.... from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE!

      The vocabulary you uses are not of typical of English speaking person would use. Rather I sense you either type in Chinese and then have the reply translated by a computer (are you using Google's language tool for the translation?), or you have an electronic Chinese/English dictionary rigth in front of you.

      I'm actually torturing white anglo saxon protestant children to force them to translate for me... IN YOUR OWN HOUSE, no less.

      We slashdot readers are technology centric people who cares about technology as well as the humanities in general around us. I don't think we really like to parade a particular nation for its virtues (just look at how much fun we have with the American government and businesses). We have good discussions on what is fair, and what is not. We are stongly opinionated, but we tend to respect each other's point. I think you should read the help section of the Slashdot's forum before posting any more and make a fool out of yourself.

      I think you should break out a calculator and do some math involving our respective /. IDs while you're making an ass of yourself.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    33. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Through your numerous reply of the same thing. I can only conclude that you are biased and not listening what other slashdotter is trying to point out here.

      By replying to people I have given you the impression that I am not listening... wow, you're trying hard to be the stupidest person to reply in this thread, ain't ya?

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    34. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between attacking the arguer alongside the argument and attacking only the arguer. You were doing the latter: the post was an ad hominem.

      Quote the bit that you think was a personal attack against the speaker.

      Him: "Their culture is t3h suck!"
      Me: "Its longevity proves it isn't."
      You: "OMG YOU'RE SUCH AN ASS FOR INSULTING HIM, YOU ASS!!!11!!1!"

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    35. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      But then, there's the Cultural Revolutions. It was suppose to cure "all ills of old cultures". So did the government/culture of PRC really in existence for thousands of years?

      Congratulations for this post, it's the only one to have addressed the possible crack in my reply: He might have been referring to the cultural revolution when he said "government/culture", though I'm fairly certain it was not such an elaborate thought, but merely a nationalistic put down.

      All the other replies were attacking some strawmen they named after me ;-\

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    36. Re:Overloards by mosb1000 · · Score: 1

      Well, which is it?

      Here is what you said:

      "When your government/culture will have been at it for a few thousand years, you'll have a point."

      The implication is that the Chinese have been at it for thousands of years, while westerners have not. What I'm saying is that either the westerners have been at it for thousands of years (the cultural argument) or the Chinese haven't (the government argument). Either way you look at it, you're wrong.

    37. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Well, which is it?

      Here is what you said:

      "When your government/culture will have been at it for a few thousand years, you'll have a point."

      The implication is that the Chinese have been at it for thousands of years, while westerners have not.

      Explain to me, slowly, why you have a single country on one side, and an entire multinational hemisphere on the other.

      Because I said nothing about comparing the whole of western civilization to one nation. Yet you, and others, jump to that conclusion, and worse, you keep implying that I also compare apples and oranges.

      Or, you know, you could keep beating on that strawman... you really seem to enjoy it.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    38. Re:Overloards by mosb1000 · · Score: 1

      China has not had a continuous government for thousands of years, so if you want to say they've been around for thousands of years, you are talking about their culture.

      Western culture is not a geographically isolated phenomena the way Chinese culture is, because western countries have been building empires making colonies for centuries, which has spread the culture across the western hemisphere.

    39. Re:Overloards by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      Neither are you apparently.

      Western culture refers to European culture which has evolved from Roman and Greek culture. It does not refer to the entire Western Hemisphere unless you want to start including Native Americans and Africans in Western culture.

    40. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Western culture is not a geographically isolated phenomena the way Chinese culture is

      Ah, I get it now, you're so ignorant that you think China's cultural influence is limited to China. That explains a lot.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    41. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      Western culture refers to European culture which has evolved from Roman and Greek culture. It does not refer to the entire Western Hemisphere unless you want to start including Native Americans and Africans in Western culture.

      No, I wanted you to be smart enough to compare a country to a country, but you're apparently not capable of that. DIAF.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    42. Re:Overloards by sp3d2orbit · · Score: 1

      I think you need to give the Chinese more credit. As you've said, they have a billion more people than we do

      Centrally controlled or planned economies don't allocate resources as efficiently as a free market. The billion extra people in China would be better off with a less authoritarian regime.

      what China is up to in Africa

      China's investment in Africa (and around the world) is centered on regimes that the US finds morally reprehensible. I am glad the US has isn't propping the Sudanese, Iranians, or Burmese.

    43. Re:Overloards by dave562 · · Score: 1

      China's investment in Africa (and around the world) is centered on regimes that the US finds morally reprehensible. I am glad the US has isn't propping the Sudanese, Iranians, or Burmese.

      Because we've done so much better with propping up al Qaeda, the Shah of Iran, and numerous puppet governments in Central America? How about our buddy in Afghanistan and his opium dealing brother?

    44. Re:Overloards by fatp · · Score: 1

      The government/culture of The People's Republic of China has only been in existence for about 70 years

      The Communitist Party of China established in 1921. The People's Republic of China established in 1949. So you should say 60 or 90. And China was at war with Japan 70 years ago.

    45. Re:Overloards by mosb1000 · · Score: 1

      China has never engaged in colonialism, nor has it ever been larger than it is now.

    46. Re:Overloards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you are dumb.

    47. Re:Overloards by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      China has never engaged in colonialism, nor has it ever been larger than it is now.

      Listen, troll, you claim that China's culture is limited to China, and that's very easy to prove false. I won't be replying to your retarded comments after this because it's clear you're either honestly stupid or intentionally saying things that are false so you can goad me into feeding you with replies. So DIAF.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    48. Re:Overloards by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      Countries are just artificial borders, culture goes beyond that. If you want to compare the government country to country then you can only compare The modern China of the past 70 years against the United States of 250 years.

      However your original post was comparing both government and culture.

  7. Honestly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If that does not generate a stern response of some western politicians it will be a very bad sign

    1. Re:Honestly by snowraver1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bad China! BAD! Now give me more cheap, exploitable labor. AWWWE, how can we stay mad at you!

      --
      Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
    2. Re:Honestly by robot256 · · Score: 1

      Bad China! BAD! Now give me more cheap, exploitable labor. AWWWE, how can we stay mad at you!

      Wait, you won't give us an more lithium batteries until we apologize? Crap, and we have to comply with environmental regulations too. Ok you win, we're sorry we told everyone you were unfairly hacking us. Please don't hold it against us!

  8. Finally above ground by mejogid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's hardly a secret that governments conduct cyber-espionage - what seems shocking in this instance is that they have been caught and that a major company, a telecoms giant and the US government have all gone on the offensive. This seems like a pretty dramatic shift, and you have to wonder what China's really done to provoke such a reaction after everyone's spent the last decade quietly appeasing them to try and get a foothold in their markets. It sounds like reading the subject lines of a few Chinese activists' emails is only the tip of the ice berg in this case, it'll be interesting to see what else has yet to be revealed.

    1. Re:Finally above ground by Delwin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Copenhagen.

    2. Re:Finally above ground by Zerth · · Score: 1

      I'm just surprised that they used the same provider. I would think someone conducting espionage would vary their proxies a bit more.

      I guess standards/budgets go down in the intelligence industry as much as any other industry in a bad economy.

    3. Re:Finally above ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I couldn't agree more. Something else is clearly going on here. The response by government officials is a marked difference from previous instances of espionage conducted by China. My wild speculation is that the information which was sought was of a different calibre than previously seen, that is they wanted to use the information to quash internal strife. The US has been playing along with China in the belief that given a long enough time they will succumb to a free market capitalism. Perhaps the US government is finally realizing that to change China needs to have information more widely available.

    4. Re:Finally above ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Those of us who manage network security for large and/or interesting companies have been dealing with Chinese originating probes for many years - they have been the majority for a long time. The only difference here is a major company went public, instead of telling us security guys to keep it to ourselves...

    5. Re:Finally above ground by sznupi · · Score: 1

      "Change", anyone?...

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    6. Re:Finally above ground by jgtg32a · · Score: 1

      >The US has been playing along with China in the belief that given a long enough time they will succumb to a free market capitalism

      I though that they basically had, I heard a nice joke "The Premier or China was driving along and his driver said there was a 3 way intersection a head and he didn't know if they should go left or right. The Premier said that's easy signal left and go right."

    7. Re:Finally above ground by mjwalshe · · Score: 1

      Isuspect that theres agentlemans agreement not to be to blatent about it - I bit like when bulgaria went ott and started wacking people with poisend umberella's

    8. Re:Finally above ground by astar · · Score: 1, Troll

      This might not be exactly it, but the copenhagen conference failure was a really big deal for the oligarchs. Pooh, even the shriveled up queen of england was out there making demands and assuming leadership. I hear the leadership countries of the opposition are all under attack. I personally have noted that Sudan is all the sudden being set up for dismembering by the usual suspects.

    9. Re:Finally above ground by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 1

      I think part of the reason is Google's reaction: It was clear, big, and public. Google is apparently fully willing to walk out of China, and it's entire market. If not directly over this, at least because it is the last straw.

      If the company involved were to just hush it up and sweep it under the rug, then there is apparently no problem and nothing for the governments to react to. Google made them react.

      --
      'Sensible' is a curse word.
    10. Re:Finally above ground by Wolvenhaven · · Score: 1

      What does smokeless tobacco have anything to do with this?

      --
      Orwell was an optimist.
    11. Re:Finally above ground by Slur · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seriously, if all the corporations become as scrupulous as Google is suddenly seeming, it might end up giving Fascism a good name.

      --
      -- thinkyhead software and media
    12. Re:Finally above ground by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The US has been playing along with China in the belief that given a long enough time they will succumb to a free market capitalism.

      They have. Don't confuse a free market with free people. On a free market, you are free to sell whatever you want, at whatever price you want. You are not necessarily free to say whatever you want.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    13. Re:Finally above ground by Thaelon · · Score: 1

      This seems like a pretty dramatic shift, and you have to wonder what China's really done to provoke such a reaction after everyone's spent the last decade quietly appeasing them to try and get a foothold in their markets.

      Well for one, they almost singlehandedly turned the Copenhagen climate summit into a wash.

      But if you ask me, the real reason the US Gov is starting to care is that China is fast becoming the player in the global economy. And that is a direct threat to the MoneyedInterests(TM) here in the US, which are who the government really works for.

      Always follow the money, the threat to money, and the promise of money if you want to know the motives behind any entity larger than an individual.

      --

      Question everything

    14. Re:Finally above ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe those emails were read from an encrypted SSL stream? That would certainly be a shakeup to learn that *someone* can break SSL.

    15. Re:Finally above ground by mejogid · · Score: 1

      They have. Don't confuse a free market with free people. On a free market, you are free to sell whatever you want, at whatever price you want. You are not necessarily free to say whatever you want.

      That's a very difficult thing to argue - in China I can't sell a newspaper, I can't run an ISP, the government won't want me competing with state run and state managed heavy industry, I won't be able to export or import at free market prices due to exchange rate fixing, I won't be able to change from being a "rural" to "urban" worker without government permission, if I run a search engine I will be required to sensor it(see: Google) etc etc.

      It's very difficult to have a free market and for the government to retain the degree of overall control that China's government demands. Perhaps not impossible, but no existing or historical society has managed it.

    16. Re:Finally above ground by JordanL · · Score: 1

      It really is incredible. One company decided to take a hit on their stock price in order to do what they knew was better in the long run. Maybe not for them, but for the industry and the world in general.

      And as a matter of posture, they knew that being loud and public would force the two governments to directly confront each other over the issue.

  9. This is probably why by C_Kode · · Score: 1

    This is probably why Google has threaten to leave China in the first place. Just using the filtering issue as the public excuse.

    1. Re:This is probably why by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google was never ambiguous that the reason they are threatening to leave is because the government was hacking their servers. The removal of the filtering was just an extra "fuck you!" to the Chinese government. They tried playing nicely with the Chinese and they still took advantage of them.

    2. Re:This is probably why by jgtg32a · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Actually I think they removed the filters because they want to leave China but it will hurt they stock, so they're trying to get kicked out. Then they can blame China for it and get the good will of various groups.

    3. Re:This is probably why by Xtravar · · Score: 1

      Am I the only one who thinks Google might not get kicked out, and their market share in China will rise because they have better results than Baidu?

      It's all very clever and the Chinese government seems to lose no matter what they do, so they might just ignore the offense to save face.

      --
      Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
  10. It gonna go great... by spribyl · · Score: 1

    Until the "independent" hackers turn into criminal gangs and/or rebels and turn on them.

    1. Re:It gonna go great... by robot256 · · Score: 1

      But there will always be loads more government hackers to find them out, so they can be dragged into prison without trial and held indefinitely. So even if someone managed to figure out how to rebel in spite of the communist propaganda stream, they'd have to realize how little good it would do.

    2. Re:It gonna go great... by jgtg32a · · Score: 1

      I don't think you understand Chinese culture.

  11. Our response is? by zero_out · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what are we going to do about it? By we, I mean we as:

    1. a body of corporations (those 20 or so affected)
    2. a nation
    3. a global community of nations (UN)
    4. a cybercommunity

    What can we do, and what is most likely to happen?

    1. Re:Our response is? by ZenDragon · · Score: 1

      IMO it is the responsibility of our government at least to defend its citizens, be they actual people or corporations operating in the US. Im not sure what retaliation would be in this case though. Im sure we have had some soft of cyber espionage going on against them for quite some time now. We just happen to be a little better about not getting caught I would assume. In any case, the fact that we have difinitively proven they have made some attempt to hack and have commited crimes against the US, give us every right to retaliate using whatever means necessary to defend our own integrity. Were do you draw the line though? It starts with a few cyber attacks, then what? Im kinda on the fence with this one, part of me says fight back, the other part asks what purpose that would serve.

    2. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Except for (maybe) Google - nothing.
      2. nothing
      3. nothing
      4. bitch and moan about it.

    3. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We construct the "Great Firewall of China".

      Except that, instead of them keeping the world out, we block their ranges from getting to us.

      Anybody have a list of IP Blocks we can ban forever? (no, I'm serious, I'm tired of my machines getting probed by them)

    4. Re:Our response is? by copponex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1. a body of corporations (those 20 or so affected)

      Nothing of note. If they pull out publicly, they will continue to work with the Chinese through third parties. Shareholders don't give a damn about human rights or free speech. They just want their money.

      2. a nation

      They've already sold us poisoned toys and drywall. They've been using what amounts to slave labor for decades in order to provide cheap products. As long as the aforementioned shareholders are running things, you're not going to hear about the problems, and the American populace is too apathetic to sacrifice any amount of convenience.

      3. a global community of nations (UN)

      They'll pass some resolutions denouncing interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries. They'll slide in some language about Palestine or Iraq, and it will be vetoed by the US and Israel and maybe a pacific atoll that happens to have a bathroom.

      4. a cybercommunity

      Learn Chinese and troll MSN Spaces?

    5. Re:Our response is? by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1. Corporations will leave China, and forgo any possible profit there, or they won't. Up to them. Google seems to have made their choice.

      2. The nation has some soul-searching to do. I expect that the US government will do exactly nothing for a long time, while pleading that other crises are taking up all their attention. (Which, actually is a pretty good excuse right now.)

      3. The UN will do nothing. Cyberwarfare is not something the UN is chartered to police, and not something they care about, and even if it were they already know what China is and they're not going to risk making them tantrum.

      4. The cybercommunity? Well, if the non-chinese cybercitizens want to start a war over this, the chinese cyberwarriors will gladly take part. But this might not be much different than the status quo.

      Revealing China as corporate espionage hackers surprises exactly no one. So nothing will change. Everyone already lives with the truth of chinese malfeasance. All that will change will be one or two companies deciding that they've had enough and they're pulling out of that broken country.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
    6. Re:Our response is? by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 1

      Could we organize a slashdot effect run on Baidu? ....

    7. Re:Our response is? by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 1

      The only problem is that Google was operating in China, not the U.S. China compromised servers in China, not the U.S.

      --
      There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
    8. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Start pulling your company out of China? The problem is the corporations see the low cost of production as a quarterly bonus. Companies want cheap labor and assembly and then use the taxpayers funds to enforce the IP violations that comes from using that same substandard labor. Think Cisco, save millions of dollars a year by getting blades made in China. They cry for the FBI's help under the cover of "national security" FUD when the China factory makes some overruns and those overruns enter the US marketplace. OMG! counterfiet chinese Cisco hardware, we are at risk! Sorry Cisco, we were at the same risk when you decided to give up some control and oversight and move the plane to a country that is far less regulated then the US is. If Cisco and the US government were truly concerned about national security and not the bottom dollar, why does the government buy sensitive network hardware from Cisco made in China in the first place? It is a complete scam and the US taxpayers are footing the bill for Ciscos business decision.

      Look at the tainted food stuffs and kids toys from China that made the headlines in the last few years! HELLO!

      Okay, so the US companies benefit from globalisation at my expense, where is my payback? How about I should be able to use global market and buy legit copies of MS Office for $2 or a new DVD movie release for $2 in China and have no restrictions on importing it back into the US to use it as I see fit?

    9. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i) Go shopping
      ii) Otherwise the terrorists win.

    10. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, we could stop building so many plants in China, and instead rebuild them here in the US.

      Just sayin'.

    11. Re:Our response is? by Xaositecte · · Score: 1

      Do what they used to do in the old days, bombard the coastline with cannon fire until the Chinese let us trade equally with'em again.

    12. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      the American populace is too apathetic to sacrifice any amount of convenience.

      I hear this quite often. I'm still under the impression that when presented with the information and an alternative, most will take it.

      For example take chocolate. Lots of chocolate is made through unfair labor, including child labor. Then there's fair trade chocolate. If you walk up to somebody and say, "you can have the slave-produced chocolate for $5 or the fair trade chocolate for $6," do you honestly believe people will still go for $5?

      But again, it requires two things: the information about what's going on and the alternative that is at least in a competitive range.

    13. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Move plant back to US
      2. Unions fuck your company in the ass until it bleeds to death
      3. Government bailout! Woot!

    14. Re:Our response is? by elrous0 · · Score: 1

      The same thing we do every night, Pinky.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    15. Re:Our response is? by dave562 · · Score: 1

      China also compromised servers in the US. RackSpace has been participating in the investigation because a compromised server in one of their data centers (I believe it was in Texas) played a key role in the attacks.

    16. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dont you have a 401k plan? if you do youre a shareholder, unless youre a moron and its sitting in cash earning .1%. If you arent a shareholder of any corporation in this country, you need a better job, or you need to get a clue. If you are, then you just want money, and youre talking shit about yourself, which is kind of fun to do sometimes.

    17. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hack the planet! Hack the planet!

    18. Re:Our response is? by Reilaos · · Score: 1

      I am somewhat worried by your consistently vague use of the word "they."

    19. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to say, sometimes child slave tears are what really make the chocolate...

    20. Re:Our response is? by copponex · · Score: 1

      1% of Americans owned about 35% of the stock market in 2004. If one includes them in the top 10% of Americans, they owned 80% of the stock market. That leaves 20% of the stock market for the other 90% of the population.

      But don't let reality get in the way of your preconceived notions and anecdotes. Common sense is, after all, "the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

    21. Re:Our response is? by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      If you walk up to somebody and say, "you can have the slave-produced chocolate for $5 or the fair trade chocolate for $6," do you honestly believe people will still go for $5?

      I’ll take Slave Labour for $5, Alex.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    22. Re:Our response is? by hydroponx · · Score: 1

      Have you tried http://wq.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl ? type China in the search box and you'll get a pretty big list of ranges to block.
      Also, there's http://www.wizcrafts.net/chinese-blocklist.html and
      this appears to be accurate, but I haven't verified it: http://www.countryipblocks.net/country-blocks/select-formats/

    23. Re:Our response is? by aztracker1 · · Score: 1

      A windows update that deletes itself if your localization is ??-cn

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    24. Re:Our response is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While this straw may not break the camel's back, it still adds to the weight. Eventually it will snap. Soon, perhaps?

      and the American populace is too apathetic to sacrifice any amount of convenience

      And so are you by blinding yourself with convenient sarcasm and blow-offery.

    25. Re:Our response is? by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Nothing of note. If they pull out publicly, they will continue to work with the Chinese through third parties. Shareholders don't give a damn about human rights or free speech. They just want their money.

      Yes and no. Yes, Corporations and shareholders do not care about human rights. But no, Corporations will be leery to do business in a country that tries to steal their intellectual property (and yes, that's also what happened in this case, Google claims the Chinese government stole intellectual property as well). This is the reason Corporations will pull out of China. It will be completely about their self-interest (and will have little to do with human rights).

      Now don't get me wrong, they'll still do business in China. After all, American corporations still do business in Africa. It's just that when you don't trust a local government, you open up a mine there, or you open up a fast food joint, or a supermarket, but you keep everything else that's really valuable well outside of their reach.

      And not too many Corporations even need to do this, it's just like when you live in a bad neighborhood, just a few people need to move away for their own personal self-interest, then convergence happens, everybody that can afford to -- will move away as well, and that neighborhood is only left with the most vulnerable people and the poorest people. This is what's likely to happen to China as well, most of the high-value business functions and/or refinement processes will be taken out of there, with only the least valuable business functions/units staying back.

    26. Re:Our response is? by Suhas · · Score: 1

      Nothing of note. If they pull out publicly, they will continue to work with the Chinese through third parties. Shareholders don't give a damn about human rights or free speech. They just want their money.

      Well, then it's great that a majority of google stock out there is non-voting stock and the holders have no voting privileges.

    27. Re:Our response is? by qmaqdk · · Score: 1

      Nothing of note. If they pull out publicly, they will continue to work with the Chinese through third parties. Shareholders don't give a damn about human rights or free speech. They just want their money.

      Seems to me this is what needs to change. So far they've used arguments such as "it's just business", and "free market", but shareholders are (or should be) moral and ethical human beings. At the end of the day greed will get us all into trouble.

      --
      My UID is prime. Hah!
    28. Re:Our response is? by yuhong · · Score: 1

      Yep, the problems of shareholder value and agency theory yet again. I even wrote a slashdot submission on it that was rejected.

  12. No, Seriously... by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If a foreign government had attacked non-digital assets of any US corporation, you would expect some kind of formal reprisal. Maybe not an airdrop of Marines, but certainly something more than Hilary Clinton threatening to write a stern letter.

    What I have not doped out yet to my own satisfaction is whether the tepid response from Washington is the fault of the current administration, confusion regarding the digital nature of the breach and assets, or a little of both.

    1. Re:No, Seriously... by MakinBacon · · Score: 5, Funny
      There's nothing tepid about sending in Hillary Clinton. In fact, China would probably prefer if we used the marines.

      http://www.theonion.com/content/video/u_s_condemned_for_pre_emptive_use

    2. Re:No, Seriously... by fridaynightsmoke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If a foreign government had attacked non-digital assets of any US corporation, you would expect some kind of formal reprisal. Maybe not an airdrop of Marines, but certainly something more than Hilary Clinton threatening to write a stern letter.

      What I have not doped out yet to my own satisfaction is whether the tepid response from Washington is the fault of the current administration, confusion regarding the digital nature of the breach and assets, or a little of both.

      I think it has something to do with Chinese savings now being the foundation of much of the western economy, and the fact that China is a major nuclear power.

      What China realised and the USSR didn't, IMO, is that they could forget the cold war and essentially buy the west with the west's own money.
      /crazy theory

      --
      This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
    3. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Although it's something of a sign of the administration holding conflicting opinions (increasing the legal value of digital content in copyright cases, while still being more dismissive of it in corporate espionage), I think it's just human nature to treat intangible digital assets differently from physical property, even when their differences are slight from a practical standpoint (secret documents, for example).

      It's somewhat similar to the problem that the big media companies are having: most people who download content illegally probably don't really feel that they're "in the right", but they don't really care that much either. The intangible nature of the product seems to contribute to that - we're wired to place value on things we can hold, or stand on, or whatever. Making a big purchase in cash feels far more real than putting it on a card, too, for that matter. If someone had physically gone into Google's offices and looked through their filing cabinets people would have much more of a gut response to the issue.

      One question that does raise, however: is it the case that we under-respond to issues without that gut reaction, or that we are simply over-responding in other cases?

    4. Re:No, Seriously... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 1, Informative

      And for some reason my comment posted as AC. Odd.

    5. Re:No, Seriously... by Snarkalicious · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Too right. A 'tepid' response is one that comes from 'administration officials'. Hillz is cabinet level, and internationally respected to boot. If she sends a letter, odds are good that Hu Jintao reads it himself.

    6. Re:No, Seriously... by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      China owns less than 1% of all US dollars in circulation, they're aren't a threat.

    7. Re:No, Seriously... by Neoprofin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem with this theory of winning the new cold war simply by buying the opponent is that it doesn't, and can't, lead to any kind of victory. By investing in US debt China has bound themselves in an unholy blood pact to the U.S. economy. We on some level need them to continue pouring money into the economy to pay for poorly thought out foreign policy, they on the other hand need us to continue to prosper or all of their investments become worthless. If one side wins both sides win, if one sides loose both sides loose. The Chinese have already shown their realization of this in their effort to keep interest rates low to prevent inflation from devaluing their assets.

    8. Re:No, Seriously... by Kral_Blbec · · Score: 5, Informative
    9. Re:No, Seriously... by jgtg32a · · Score: 2, Informative

      And of all of the debt they own it is only 23% of the total foreign debt, and IIRC foreign dept is just under half of the total US dept.

    10. Re:No, Seriously... by sycodon · · Score: 1

      Maybe this can be ginned up into an excuse to tell them to eat their T-Bonds.

      National debt reduced just like that!

      But seriously and hypothetically, what are the obligations of a debtor nation if the nation holding the debt for all practical purposes declares war?

      Interesting.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    11. Re:No, Seriously... by astar · · Score: 1

      Seriously, where are you coming from?

      The word attack is being used for a spying attack. You can get away with it, but if you wanted to be precise, you would not say it that way. On the other hand, if you wanted to inflame nuts, you might.

      As far as a stern response from Washington, I would classify this incident as a much lesser thing than say the Israel spy ring that got nuclear bomb secrets from us. Reference Pollard. Perhaps we issued some sort of stern letter then, but it is not a sure bet.

    12. Re:No, Seriously... by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with this theory of winning the new cold war simply by buying the opponent is that it doesn't, and can't, lead to any kind of victory. By investing in US debt China has bound themselves in an unholy blood pact to the U.S. economy. We on some level need them to continue pouring money into the economy to pay for poorly thought out foreign policy, they on the other hand need us to continue to prosper or all of their investments become worthless. If one side wins both sides win, if one sides loose both sides loose. The Chinese have already shown their realization of this in their effort to keep interest rates low to prevent inflation from devaluing their assets.

      Was that a long winded post for "The US is facilitating a Ponzi scheme, with China being the the bottom rung contributors."?

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    13. Re:No, Seriously... by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      If a foreign government had attacked non-digital assets of any US corporation, you would expect some kind of formal reprisal.

      ...

      What I have not doped out yet to my own satisfaction is whether the tepid response from Washington is the fault of the current administration, confusion regarding the digital nature of the breach and assets, or a little of both.

      Part of the confusion may be due to trying to force the wrong conceptual framework. This is not an attack akin to attacking a "non-digtal asset" - that is, a physical assault. This is espionage. And the US has been dealing with those kinds of threats quietly for decades. The only difference is that in the past, the landscape involved primarily government agents and targets. Now we have a greatly increased civilian presence and increased insight to the activities.

    14. Re:No, Seriously... by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In circulation, maybe.

      But, they hold the vast majority of the U.S. federal debt obligations. The federal government is reliant on China to finance it's operations because of the massive deficit in the budget. If China were to stop buying the federal debt instruments, interest rates in the U.S. would soar and the value of the dollar would drop.

      If China dumped all the U.S. federal debt instruments it owns on to the open market, it would take a hit in the wallet, but the United States would experience hyperinflation on par with Zimbabwe. The U.S. would be bankrupt and it will take thousands to millions of dollars to buy a cup of coffee.

      It is not the circulating dollars they hold that is the problem. It is all the paper they hold that says we owe them trillions of dollars.

      --
      There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
    15. Re:No, Seriously... by rgviza · · Score: 5, Funny

      Isn't the use of Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi against the Geneva convention? We could get in a lot of trouble.

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
    16. Re:No, Seriously... by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What did Google and the rest of them expect, they got in to bed with a country that has little to no regard for the privacy of its own citizens, did Google honestly think they would be treated any different? I surely don't feel sorry for them. Google compromised so much in order to "compete in the world economy", and now they are shocked that they got bit?

      The Scorpion and the Turtle.

      --
      500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
    17. Re:No, Seriously... by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 5, Funny

      it will take thousands to millions of dollars to buy a cup of coffee.

      I see you frequent Starbucks too.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    18. Re:No, Seriously... by bhsurfer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, as a matter of policy we (the US) don't seem to follow the Geneva convention anymore. The use of either Pelosi or Clinton could, however, be construed as "cruel" even if it's not "unusual."

      --
      Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
      Groucho Marx
    19. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and the fact that China is a major nuclear power.

      China has only 25 non-MIRVed ICBMs with the range to hit us. Amazingly all are liquid fueled (meaning they take up to 30 minutes to load with fuel) and are not mobile.

      So it would be pretty easy to wipe them out with a first strike assuming our intelligence services know where their missile sites are. If we used our SLBMs they definitely wouldn't have time to react. You could say they'd fire first, but the only thing stupider than starting a nuclear war is starting one when your opponent has thousands more than you.

    20. Re:No, Seriously... by svtdragon · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except that if they sold them, they'd be doing us a favor.

    21. Re:No, Seriously... by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I thought it was a scorpion and a frog (how does a scorpion sting a turtle in the back?)

    22. Re:No, Seriously... by svtdragon · · Score: 1

      And although this is linked in the post I sent you, here's a little more on it.

    23. Re:No, Seriously... by blueg3 · · Score: 1, Informative

      China holds less than a quarter of the US debt held by foreign entities, which is itself about a quarter of the total US government debt. So, China holds roughly an eighth of the US debt. (Japan holds slightly less -- about 5% of the total.)

      That's not even a majority, much less a "vast" majority.

    24. Re:No, Seriously... by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      Answer: they have no obligation at all. Just like you don't have any obligation to pay your loan shark provided you are fairly certain you're thugs are bigger, badder, and more numerous than his thugs and think you can get away with it kneed caps intact.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    25. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't entirely comparable to a physical attack. One consequence of a physical attack is that something is destroyed. Such an attack is irreversible and very obvious.

      But when it's a digital attack, the same argument comes up as with intellectual property "theft". Nothing is lost, so it's not theft. In a digital attack, nothing is lost, so does it really deserve the same response as a physical attack? I don't think so. Of course it deserves some proportionate response. The question is, what would be proportionate?

    26. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Informative except the part about a quarter of a quarter being an eighth.

    27. Re:No, Seriously... by It'sVersusItsGuy · · Score: 0, Troll

      I would take you more seriously if you had better language skills. The word "it's" is a contraction of the words "it is." You obviously intended to use the possessive of it, which is spelled "its." You get a pass this time, but please be more careful in the future.

      --
      - Tweaking the ears of the grammatically challenged since 2002.
    28. Re:No, Seriously... by gtall · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Foreign policy has nothing or very little to do with U.S. debt. The total Defense budget was around $600 Billion while the total budget was about $3 Trillion. About $100 Billion of defense was spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan.

      The biggest drivers of U.S. debt are....the American People. They created the current recession by buying and selling real estate in a game of musical chairs they thought they would not lose at. They were aided by the Congress-critters and blood-suckers on Wall Street. This exposed the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing by those other blood-suckers, Business School Product who were last spotted attempting to outsource their grandmothers to Asia.

      There are other problems that space and blood pressure prevent me from expressing to an audience with such delicate sensibilities.

    29. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know it is annoying to be this guy, but: Loose = opposite of Tight, Lose = opposite of Win

    30. Re:No, Seriously... by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 1

      I know, I heard it with a frog, hound etc, so I went to Google it to get it 'right' and snopes of all places had it as a turtle. Interesting story none the less. I assume the scorpion could sting the turtle in the head.

      first that showed up

      --
      500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
    31. Re:No, Seriously... by countertrolling · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're thinking of the snail and the turtle..

      I don't know.. it happened so fast

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    32. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if we were the turtle then we'd be protected by a shell.

    33. Re:No, Seriously... by DrugCheese · · Score: 1

      And which administration has taken a tough stance on cyber crime? Don't get me wrong, I don't like any politicians. But the Chinese have been bombarding companies and government agencies inside our borders for many years now.

      --
      *DrugCheese rants*
    34. Re:No, Seriously... by Halo- · · Score: 3, Informative

      I doubt this had anything with them doing business in China. Google is a big, juicy target. This attack would have happened even if Google had been giving China the finger for a long time. In fact, it would have been more likely, since China was apparently after information of people who disagree with Chinese policies. What's interesting, is that rather than saying: "Yeah, well, we got hacked, what can you do?" Google is actually looking to smack them.

    35. Re:No, Seriously... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      It's different than a Ponzi scheme because in this case, no one wins. It's bad all the way around.

      --
      Qxe4
    36. Re:No, Seriously... by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      "They're aren't," I have to laugh at myself over this one.

    37. Re:No, Seriously... by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      They expected China to at least pretend to play by the rules of international netiquette.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    38. Re:No, Seriously... by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      While i dont see China doing that, if you can destroy your enemy or expend a lot of money or expend a lot of money AND lives/material/image/whatever, the cheapest way seems to be to just throw away money. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

    39. Re:No, Seriously... by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      There's nothing tepid about Hillary Clinton. She's 275 degrees below zero Celsius.

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    40. Re:No, Seriously... by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 1

      It's different than a Ponzi scheme because in this case, no one wins. It's bad all the way around.

      Do you consider Bernard Madoff to have won?

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    41. Re:No, Seriously... by ShatteredArm · · Score: 1

      If one side wins both sides win, if one sides loose both sides loose.

      That's not entirely true. Certainly the US loses if China quits financing American consumption, but the notion that they need someone to consume their goods in order to feed themselves is preposterous. They would certainly face a period of instability while they adjust to the idea of consuming their own products, but in the end, they have the manufacturing base now. They could, with a little effort (and a hit to their dollar-denominated assets, but that can be overcome), play both the role of producer and consumer, as America did for some time, but that would probably result in too much individual prosperity and the currently ignorant masses learning about individual liberty and questioning the authoritarian regime.

    42. Re:No, Seriously... by d34dluk3 · · Score: 1

      if one sides loose both sides loose.

      Also known as "the zookeeper's dilemma."

    43. Re:No, Seriously... by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      I think it has something to do with Chinese savings now being the foundation of much of the western economy, and the fact that China is a major nuclear power.

      What China realised and the USSR didn't, IMO, is that they could forget the cold war and essentially buy the west with the west's own money. /crazy theory

      Actually, it's a double edged sword. While countries are reliant on Chinese investment; China's economic health becomes more tied to Western countries as well. They are more vulnerable to economic problems and exchange rates by virtue of their significant investments; as well as inflation and devaluation of foreign currency. As the saying goes, I lend yo $100 and you can't pay and you have a problem, I lend you $100 billion and you can't pay and I have a problem.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    44. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The problem with this theory of winning the new cold war simply by buying the opponent is that it doesn't, and can't, lead to any kind of victory.

      By investing in US debt China has bound themselves in an unholy blood pact to the U.S. economy. We on some level need them to continue pouring money into the economy to pay for poorly thought out foreign policy, they on the other hand need us to continue to prosper or all of their investments become worthless. If one side wins both sides win, if one sides loose both sides loose. The Chinese have already shown their realization of this in their effort to keep interest rates low to prevent inflation from devaluing their assets.

      The U.S. can win by refusing to pay their debt and leaving China holding the bag. Sure it would cause chaos and put some serious damage on the reputation of the country, but there's no reason why the U.S. could not do this. So technically the U.S. can win and completely destroy China and the rest of the world economically becoming a tiny bubble above a rising tide of debt

    45. Re:No, Seriously... by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      You should not put undue value on non-tangibles. They are easily replaceable*. Otherwise every "violation" against our gods would be considered an act of war.. placing us with... what group is that now? As far as mere spying is concerned, Google, of all "people" shouldn't get all huffy about it.

      *they DO backup.. don't they?

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    46. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But, they hold the vast majority of the U.S. federal debt obligations.

      Not True. They hold almost 25% of US debt which makes them the largest individual holder of debt (just a little ahead of Japan) but they are far from holding the majority of it. That said, while they could in fact put a hurting on the dollar by dumping our debt they would also majorly piss off the holders of the other 75% (the rest of the industrialized world basically) not to mention making Americans too poor to buy even their cheaply made products so this isn't too likely in the near future.

    47. Re:No, Seriously... by mosb1000 · · Score: 5, Informative

      First of all, you are factually incorrect. China owns a bout a quarter of our nation's foreign debt, which is about a quarter of our nations total debt. That means that they own less than 7% of our national debt.

      Secondly, china selling it's bonds would not lead to hyper-inflation. The only thing that causes that is a rapid increase in the supply of currency. So for that to happen, the treasury would need to make more capital available (such as we saw during the insane bail-outs that have been happening). But, as is now known from the bailouts, even dumping 2 trillion on the market will not cause significant inflation (and China has less than 800 billion).

      What's the difference between Zimbabwe and the US? The problem in Zimbabwe is that the government was trying to overcome an actual shortage in resources by printing currency. Since printing currency in no way counteracted their actual food shortages prices rose endlessly as they printed more money. But, since there are no shortages in actual supply in the US, things didn't happen that way here. Banks were showing huge paper losses, so the government bailed them out to meet investor expectations. Basically, the shortage was only really numbers on paper, and raising those numbers counteracted the shortage.

      Don't get me wrong, there are real problems in the US. But those are problems of expectations, not supply. People expect to be able to retire, but we soon won't have the workforce to let them. So either the government will force younger generations to work harder for less benefit (there are various ways of doing this) or they will let wall-street shrink retirement accounts and scale back social security. Right now it looks like they prefer the former, but I'd say the latter is the safer option. The real danger is that when the government takes these steps (and they will have to) it may cause social unrest.

    48. Re:No, Seriously... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Hilary Clinton threatening to write a stern letter.

      OMG OMG no, anything but that! NooooOOO!

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    49. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah esp. because her letters are hilaryos

    50. Re:No, Seriously... by imunfair · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm not sure I agree with several of your premises. They're the popular views, but I'm not sure if they're actually true.

      The first supposition is that China owns a large portion of our debt - this one I can factually dispute based on numbers from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

      Foreign and international own approximately 28% of our debt, and China owns 24% of the international debt. This means China only holds about 7% of our total debt.

      Second, and this is just my own supposition, I don't think China cares if they get repaid. As long as their economy flourishes they are happy to allow us to pay cents on the dollar for their items by undervaluing their currency and buying our debt. Think of it as China's "stimulus package" for their economy. Sure in the future they might try to call the debt as a strategic move to affect our economy, but monetarily I don't think it's an issue for them.

      If the second item is true then all they need to do is keep us stimulating their economy while ours declines. At the point where they are selling to enough other countries that the loss of our business isn't fatal to their economy they can choose to make any move they wish that harms our economy. If you're playing the long game you only need your enemy to support you until you're strong enough to kill them without doing too much damage to yourself.

      I wouldn't be surprised if China is the United States of the next century, in the same way that superpowers like England and Spain were overshadowed by the US.

    51. Re:No, Seriously... by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, due to the economics of the USA, China could simply stop loaning the US Government money and everything would come to a grinding halt pretty fast (or worse, they could call in their loan and demand the money already owned them). As a result, you won't see much more than some political chest beating, a few pointing of fingers, and at most a slap on the writ saying "Bad China", and that will be it.

      --
      We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
    52. Re:No, Seriously... by cycle003 · · Score: 1

      I think this is an exaggeration, but the US is heavily reliant on China to keep the dollar strong. The economy of both countries would suffer miserably because China would no longer be able to export goods to the US and the dollar would be incredibly weak. Eventually, the US manufacturing base would grow, US exports would soar, and the economy would recover. Unfortunately, in the mean time, unemployment would also sky rocket, and the standard of living would rapidly fall.

    53. Re:No, Seriously... by Dahamma · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, foreign debt is about 25% - so that makes the Chinese total portion about 5%...

    54. Re:No, Seriously... by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Hyperinflation, though likely in my opinion, is still not inevitable, nor can any foreign power unilaterally cause it; it is caused by massive and accelerating expansion of the money supply, which is completely within the control of the Federal Reserve and hence the federal government. The reason we will likely get it is that it is the politically easier of the only two options available for addressing the massive debt, including off-book future liabilities, of the U.S. government.

      The other option would be for the central government to accept that in order to survive, it must accept an eventual return to rule of law and to Constitutional principles. It must accept a much smaller role in the economy. It must accept that the only way for its share of the pie to grow bigger is to let the pie itself grow, which requires, at least in the short term, getting its hands out of that pie, and allowing the economy to grow bereft of any regulations at the federal level save, at most, those that are necessary to protect basic human rights. It must forever give up its present role of purposely enriching some at the expense of all others. It must forever give up its alleged "right" to manipulate the economy through the Federal Reserve. None of this seems likely to happen on its own, but, like all institutions, governments value their own survival above all else, and as the economy collapses and the prospect of widespread revolt and even civil war looms large, it will adapt (or it will die, and the states will take over).

    55. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is why I keep telling people we need Bernie Madoff as our lead US money guy, by the time foreign nations realize they have been duped, they won't call us out cause everyone would lose too much money. But in the end, ???, Profit.

    56. Re:No, Seriously... by zullnero · · Score: 1

      If a foreign government had attacked non-digital assets of any US corporation, you would expect some kind of formal reprisal.

      It has a whole lot less to do with the Executive branch than it has to do with Congress's near-ubiquitous lack of fundamental understanding of the importance of digital security and their lack of attention paid to updating current laws to properly cover digital security of a government OR corporate entity. That said, the physical assets of US corporations located outside US borders have been attacked more times than you can count without federal reprisal. There's an element of personal responsibility that is expected out of corporations (well, except Wall Street) to clean up their own messes.

    57. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they got in to bed with a country that has little to no regard for the privacy of its own citizens, did Google honestly think they would be treated any different?

      Or in the words of Eric Schmidt, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it [in China] in the first place".

    58. Re:No, Seriously... by KraftDinner · · Score: 1

      I thought it was a scorpion and a fox.

    59. Re:No, Seriously... by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      You gotta be kidding me, if the US stopped exports from China today I would get whatever amount of money I could and start a manufacturing company tomorrow.

    60. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What did Google and the rest of them expect, they got in to bed with a country that has little to no regard for the privacy of its own citizens. . .

      Wait, are you talking about China or the US? Because I can't really tell.

    61. Re:No, Seriously... by SendBot · · Score: 2, Funny

      Especially after she proved herself so cool under sniper fire in bosnia. Look how quick she was with that sidearm!:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHVEDq6RVXc

    62. Re:No, Seriously... by jzhos · · Score: 1

      Right. I hope they will continue their "do no evil" when FBI/CIA/NSA ask them for cooperation. Of course, we will not know that it has happened.

    63. Re:No, Seriously... by Alpha830RulZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      he reason we will likely get it is that it is the politically easier of the only two options available for addressing the massive debt, including off-book future liabilities, of the U.S. government.

      Oh, for mod points. This person gets it. Historically, one of the major drivers for government laxity towards inflation (Argentina, Mexico, Pre WWII germany, etc) is that the government owes more in nominal terms than it can fund through taxes. Allow a few years of 10% inflation, and that burden is eased significantly, as tax revenues rise with inflation, while the size of the debt remains the same. We will see 6-10% inflation for 3 to 8 years sometime in the next 15 years, because that is the ONLY way the US government can get out of the financial hole we are in. This will in turn hurt the Chinese, who are holding vast amounts of dollar demoninated debt.

      --
      I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
    64. Re:No, Seriously... by MollyB · · Score: 1

      People who correct other's grammar, usage, or spelling should be more careful than to place a quotation mark after a period, at least in American English.
      http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

      Maybe we all need to take ourselves less seriously. :^)

    65. Re:No, Seriously... by scottzak · · Score: 1

      If you're playing the long game you only need your enemy to support you until you're strong enough to kill them without doing too much damage to yourself.

      I wouldn't be surprised if China is the United States of the next century, in the same way that superpowers like England and Spain were overshadowed by the US.

      No worries. The US didn't kill England or Spain and they seem to be doing well enough today.

      You don't need to be a superpower to be safe, healthy, prosperous and at peace. In fact, it's easier to be at peace if you're not. Just keep your eyes open, refuse the temptation of the brass ring and enjoy your ride.

      --
      No more cults.
    66. Re:No, Seriously... by rattaroaz · · Score: 1

      I thought it was a fox and a hound.

    67. Re:No, Seriously... by TempeTerra · · Score: 1

      As somebody smarter than me said, "if you owe the bank a thousand dollars you have a problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars the bank has a problem".

      --
      .evom ton seod gis eht
    68. Re:No, Seriously... by Sinning · · Score: 1

      Well, he did live like a billionaire for many years.

    69. Re:No, Seriously... by cekander · · Score: 1

      We're looking at two fascist entities with similar fascist interests. As long as they both exist, they will always stand together in their fascist goals, above and beyond the needs of their people. There will be no war with China. Eventually the US government may convince the Chinese government to do as we do, make good and give the people the illusion of freedom of speech. And then when you're so powerful and can control the media, then you can keep those pesky conspiracy theories at bay about how you assassinate and suppress people who exercise their new found freedoms to your dis-taste *coughMLKcough*

    70. Re:No, Seriously... by cycle003 · · Score: 1

      And you'd be producing a million widgets a day by tomorrow, right? YOU gotta be kidding ME.

    71. Re:No, Seriously... by TheKidWho · · Score: 1

      I could be within two months depending on the complexity.

    72. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What did anyone expect when companies started data mining on people? Not everyone is going to use that information to "improve the internet experience".

      It will be our government someday, doing the same thing.

    73. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a foreign government had attacked non-digital assets of any US corporation, you would expect some kind of formal reprisal. Maybe not an airdrop of Marines, but certainly something more than Hilary Clinton threatening to write a stern letter.

      That's right. And since this was not an attack on non-digital assets, you'll have to do with Hillary Clinton.

    74. Re:No, Seriously... by Sanat · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the link... that was hilarious.

      --
      And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
    75. Re:No, Seriously... by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 2

      But, since there are no shortages in actual supply in the US, things didn't happen that way here.

      This is a circular argument. Supply of basic consumer goods in the US is at this point nearly entirely based upon imports (a bulk of it from China, incidentally). So a collapse in the US currency's purchasing power would also lead to collapse of supply of goods and thus their shortage.

      The world's economy is at these days pretty much a gigantic Ponzi scheme whereby "value" of currencies and goods is in its entirety based on make-believe wishful thinking. US currency has "value" only because enough people globally wish to pretend that it is so. So far that belief has been strained, but not broken. But if that, fundamentally irrational, belief were to be shaken sufficiently, the entire scheme collapses.

      And this (not any "goods shortages") is what causes currency collapses, i.e wide-spread loss of belief in the "value" of the pieces of paper that purport to be "valuable".

      An ability to manipulate people's opinions of "value" is at the core of the move from physical-resource-backed currencies to utterly fictional ones as governments realized that as long as the public can be made gullible enough, they will pretend that numbers in some bank computers, numbers created at a whim of bankers and politicians, actually represent "value".

      Gold (and other natural resource) backed currencies had their own dire problems but at least they had some semi-subjective means of controlling the "value" (by constraining supply) of the currency in a way that lay outside of government whim.

      Ultimately an ideal currency would have never-changing (but divisible) constant total circulation to which and from no one could artificially add or subtract.

    76. Re:No, Seriously... by thesolo · · Score: 1, Interesting

      What I have not doped out yet to my own satisfaction is whether the tepid response from Washington is the fault of the current administration, confusion regarding the digital nature of the breach and assets, or a little of both.

      Oh for fuck's sake...

      What you see as tepid, I see as extremely diplomatic. There's an open investigation into this, the Dept. of State surely doesn't have all the details yet. What would you prefer they do, issue a hawkish, threatening letter? Or perhaps demands?

      8 years of poor foreign policy and unnecessary demands got us very little sympathy or friends on the global stage. I think maybe you should give the Dept of State time to process all the details before they issue an ultimatum.

    77. Re:No, Seriously... by TempeTerra · · Score: 1

      The other option would be for the central government to ... accept a much smaller role in the economy.

      It's not at all clear that allowing an abusively free market would reduce national debt. Removing regulation would allow some sectors to increase their wealth at the expense of others, but it's not clear that the profit would increase overall or in any way which was useful for decreasing the national debt.

      --
      .evom ton seod gis eht
    78. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To many men, the largest prize is the legacy that they leave behind,
      not the quality of life that they led while living.

      Madoff left a legacy of crime and ruin, you can be sure he is not proud.

    79. Re:No, Seriously... by nanoakron · · Score: 2, Funny

      What do they loose? The dogs?

      Personally, I'm more worried about one side or the other losing.

    80. Re:No, Seriously... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 1

      I looked under the clause regarding biological weapons and didn't see it there. Apparently both are cited in the clause regarding weapons of mass defamation though...

      Yeah...that one's proof that its time for me to get back to work.

    81. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > ... the notion that they need someone to consume their goods in order to feed themselves is preposterous

      Actually, as a net importer of food, they DO need to maintain their level of international income to feed themselves.

      The US-China trade dynamic, in context of the rest of the world right now, is this: if trade breaks down between the two, the USA can always find someone else to buy stuff from, sell food to, and sell (the fairly small percentage of total) government bonds to... not at as favorable rates as present, but enough to continue profiting from all three. The US also has vast untapped local potential for production, in both material and human resources, since we've been importing it for cheaper for a long time now - so for those things the US can't find alternative foreign producers for, the US can make its own supply.

      By playing the role of the cheap supplier, China can't recover from that kind of failure. They were already global. There's no additional buyers to fill the gap if the US stops buying from China. There's also no room to cut prices to try to create additional buyers, since China's approach was already to be the cheapest. Likewise, China's food imports would have to come from somewhere else of equal or greater cost.

    82. Re:No, Seriously... by BobMcD · · Score: 1

      Google isn't sure that means what you think that means...

    83. Re:No, Seriously... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      If one side wins both sides win, if one sides loose both sides loose.

      But don't forget that because China is a totalitarian state, they don't care as much about what happens to their citizens. If they "win" by a method that makes their citizens suffer heavily, they just may do it. Vietnam etc. has shown that one can win against the US by out-suffering us. It's easier to get your underlings to suffer for a cause in a totalitarian system than in a democracy.
           

    84. Re:No, Seriously... by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Sure it would cause chaos and put some serious damage on the reputation of the [US]

      You've got to be kidding me. Compared to what?

    85. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China holds less than a quarter of the US debt held by foreign entities, which is itself about a quarter of the total US government debt. So, China holds roughly an eighth of the US debt
      Where did you learn your math? Are you working for US treasure Dept? That would explain the budget...

    86. Re:No, Seriously... by Lord+Ender · · Score: 1

      OR we will have to build robots to tend to our old people. We will stick them in FEMA trailers and let the robots take care of them. Imagine roombas rolling around the trailer park carrying pill cups.

      And if they don't like it, they should have balanced the fucking budget of our nation rather than dumping their debts on us.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    87. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since when is a quarter of a quarter an eighth?

    88. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As somebody smarter than me said, "if you owe the bank a thousand dollars you have a problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars the government has a problem".

      FTFY

    89. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't the use of Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi against the Geneva convention? We could get in a lot of trouble.

      Yes. Whoever deployed Hilly and the House Madam against the U.S. should be tried for war crimes.

    90. Re:No, Seriously... by ShatteredArm · · Score: 1

      if trade breaks down between the two, the USA can always find someone else to buy stuff from, sell food to, and sell (the fairly small percentage of total) government bonds to... not at as favorable rates as present, but enough to continue profiting from all three.

      Who's going to sell stuff to us, when we have devalued our dollar to pay for our inability to finance our spending habits? Who is going to buy our bonds (at a non-extortionist rate) when the supply of our debt increases more and more every year? Even if it's a small percentage of our debt right now, we're still talking about financing trillions of dollars (the UST has to roll something like $3.5 trillion in maturing debt in the next three years...that's not including new spending). I don't think there is enough appetite for our debt to make that feasible, even if China keeps buying it.

      Right now, China has to import food and energy. They sell crap to the U.S. for currency, and buy that food and energy with that same currency (they could exchange it, it doesn't matter). The seller of food and energy then uses that currency to purchase something from somebody else. China can simply cut the US out of the loop and directly export to the same countries from which they import. If an economy with N participating countries can function, so can an economy with N-1. That the US is the only country that imports cheap crap is totally arbitrary; they can shift resources to something else that the food producers want.

    91. Re:No, Seriously... by aztracker1 · · Score: 1

      Or, we declare (cyber) war on China, and forgive our debt as repayment for acts of said war.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    92. Re:No, Seriously... by bigwillystylie · · Score: 1

      Don't forget Hong Kong. Extra 3.36%

    93. Re:No, Seriously... by seventyfive75 · · Score: 1

      What China realised and the USSR didn't, IMO, is that they could forget the cold war and essentially buy the west with the west's own money. /crazy theory

      Maybe they realized it and already succeeded. I would argue they bought or influenced every major media company, pushed a socialist agenda, and now we have a socialist president.

    94. Re:No, Seriously... by nixman99 · · Score: 1

      It's different than a Ponzi scheme because in this case, no one wins.

      . . . except the bankers

    95. Re:No, Seriously... by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      Why do you expect to actually SEE what the real retort will be ? Could be a slight 1% increase on a specific and abscure tax that would cause far more economical damage that a truckload of marines in center of Beijing could possibly do.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    96. Re:No, Seriously... by Rich0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is a circular argument. Supply of basic consumer goods in the US is at this point nearly entirely based upon imports

      Yes and no. The US produces quite a few basic consumer goods - food in particular. A plastic toy supply shortage will not cripple the US. Granted, the US does depend on imports for a number of fairly critical practical things. But...

      The world's economy is at these days pretty much a gigantic Ponzi scheme whereby "value" of currencies and goods is in its entirety based on make-believe wishful thinking. US currency has "value" only because enough people globally wish to pretend that it is so.

      Arguably, then the US is in the best place of all. For the last decade we've been receiving useful and practical basic goods in exchange for pieces of paper that you believe are worthless. Is it any surprise that US companies don't want to bother making these goods if others are willing to do so just for pieces of paper?

      As long as supplies of these goods were not cut off overnight, the US could make them on its own. Right now manufacturing in the US tends to not be as cheap as it is elsewhere, but it isn't like the US couldn't build enough cars or whatever for its own needs. Oil is probably the most critical imported resource, but the problems of oil aren't so much that the US depends on foreign supplies so much as that the entire world depends on a resource that will be limited everywhere at some point. If anything the relatively untapped US local oil reserves will put the US in a good strategic position when everybody else is running out.

      As far as all the stuff about controlled versus natural currencies and that - every system has its pros and cons. A well-managed paper currency has a lot of advantages over something like gold in that you can actually regulate the supply of money in accordance with its demand to keep prices stable. Virtually all currencies tend to be artificial - at least since they stopped paying people in salt. It isn't like a lump of gold has any practical use. If there is ever a nuclear winter the guy who will be able to barter isn't the guy with all the gold bricks in his basement, but rather the guy with a lot full of functional cars/fuel (that he can defend) or the guy who knows how to perform basic surgeries. Anything other than a truly practical item or skill is just a currency of convenience, and there is nothing wrong with that either.

    97. Re:No, Seriously... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I think that many of the stock market bubble problems we have are one of demographics. Lots of people want to work for 30 years and then live for 30 years off of what they saved up (work from 25-55, retire from 55-85). Fundamentally that just doesn't work - especially with a declining population size.

      When all those boomers retire they're going to want to eat out, and that means that they'll have to trade dollars for dinners, and the resulting demand will drive up prices until their waitress is making $60k/yr selling them $100 burgers. Then they'll run through their savings in 10 years and be no better off than somebody who didn't save a dime for retirement and just planned to work until they die.

      Obviously that is a stretched example, but the principle is right - all those people with money saved up will create a huge supply of cash and a shortage of people willing to actually perform services and supply goods in exchange for that cast. That means inflation which makes all that cash lose its value very quickly.

      Of course, all those near-retirement people were putting tons of money into the stock market. The US economy is only so large, and when people invest more money than can actually be used to produce goods and services (because when they invest their money they don't spend it), the market bubbles. Then when the supply of people saving dries up the market starts to crash. When they start pulling out their money to live off of it en masse then they'll find that nobody wants to buy all that stock, and prices will drop to values that are more in line with the assets and earnings of the underlying companies.

      Don't get me wrong - a moderate amount of saving is a good thing. Everybody should have some kind of buffer in their bank account. However, the entire country can't live off of savings. Imagine if EVERYBODY in the US saved up $20k in the bank - easily enough to live at a modest standard for several months. Then imagine that everybody actually tried to take a few months off of work AT THE SAME TIME. Those savings would be worthless as any place you could spend it would be close. Now imagine that maybe 5% of the country stayed at work - they could charge a fortune for their services. That's what will happen when the US population starts to fall with the retirement of the boomers, and many other nations face similar issues...

    98. Re:No, Seriously... by Jaqenn · · Score: 1

      (You linked the same post twice.)

      --
      You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
    99. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I only want to say ONE thing. The Federal Government and the federal reserve have little to do with eachother. The federal reserve is no more federal than federal express! It is a private bank owned by private individuals who run the bank for profit and not for the good of the American People. This was admitted by the President who signed the act into law. Just look up President Woodrow Wilson quotes.

    100. Re:No, Seriously... by mosb1000 · · Score: 1

      "let the robots take care of them"

      I know this isn't what you meant, but it sounds like you are advocating camps where we put old people so that robots can kill them in an efficient manner.

      The problem (with what you were actually saying) is that old people vote, and they won't vote for that.

    101. Re:No, Seriously... by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sure in the future they might try to call the debt

      This seems to be a common misunderstanding. Holders of treasury bonds cannot "call the debt."

      When China buys US debt, they buy treasury bonds (or one of the half-dozen other names the same basic instrument sells under). A treasury bond is a promise to pay a stated sum of money on a given date.

      So, today I might buy a $100 treasury bond with a maturity of 2040. In 2040 I can turn in that bond for $100 in US dollars (cash or whatever) from the US government. In 2039 it can't be turned in for a dime. Now, in 2039 you could almost certainly sell it to somebody else for very close to $100. The way China makes money is that the $100 bond might have only cost them $20-30 or whatever to buy today. Bonds may also pay interest as well.

      The only thing China can do is stop buying new bonds and cash in their existing ones as they mature. The US never promised to give them money before the maturity date, so they are under no obligation to do so.

    102. Re:No, Seriously... by complete+loony · · Score: 1

      I dunno, I think the power of deleveraging is bigger than 10%. From memory, before this crisis Americans were spending in aggregate $1.3 or so for every $1 of actual income. The 0.30c came from home loans and credit cards, and all this extra lending stimulated the economy. Now that debt growth has reversed, there's at least 30% of the cashflow in the economy that no longer exists. This is why the govenment adding 2 trillion in bank reserves hasn't helped all that much. Nobody wants to borrow it and spend it. And no bank wants to take the risk you won't be able to pay.

      Now if the government prints more money (or adds some electronic records somewhere to accomplish the same thing) they've already shown they will probably give it straight to the banks. And all the banks have done with the extra cash they've gotten so far is gamble it on various markets. The currency may be devalued when compared with other currencies. And that may help the government's debt problem since they're the ones printing the cash. But if the cash doesn't end up in the hands of consumers, actual prices for say coffee may still go down at the same time.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    103. Re:No, Seriously... by complete+loony · · Score: 1

      which requires, at least in the short term, getting its hands out of that pie, and allowing the economy to grow bereft of any regulations at the federal level

      On that I must disagree. It is the removal of regulations that has lead us into this mess. I think the role of government should be to actively fight against any concentration of power in both the public and private sectors. So that all men may live free of slavery. The system we have now has far too much in common with the feudal system, in terms of concentration of power.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    104. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hyperinflation, though likely in my opinion, is still not inevitable, nor can any foreign power unilaterally cause it; it is caused by massive and accelerating expansion of the money supply, which is completely within the control of the Federal Reserve, not the federal government.
      Fixed that for you.
      The "Federal" in Federal Reserve is as much "Federal" as the "Fed" in "FedEx."

    105. Re:No, Seriously... by timeOday · · Score: 1

      So for that to happen, the treasury would need to make more capital available (such as we saw during the insane bail-outs that have been happening). But, as is now known from the bailouts, even dumping 2 trillion on the market will not cause significant inflation (and China has less than 800 billion).

      I've read that's because the increase in national debt has only counterbalanced a decrease in private debt (lending & borrowing), so the total amount of debt in the US actually hasn't changed much. Without govt spending, then, we actually would have encountered deflation as during the great depression. This encourages further economic slowdown by encouraging people to wait until later to spend any money, since it will then be worth more.

    106. Re:No, Seriously... by Bottoms · · Score: 1

      A Ponzi scheme with foreign involvement - also known as a Fonzie scheme. Aaaaay!

    107. Re:No, Seriously... by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      Only if they're wearing swimwear.

    108. Re:No, Seriously... by Hawke666 · · Score: 1

      “Rule 1: Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, even inside single quotes.” Sounds like placing the quotation mark after the period is the right thing to do. Or did I miss something?

    109. Re:No, Seriously... by VendettaMF · · Score: 1

      Easily enough fixed. Basic voting competence tests. And we can get rid of the inane teens and 20's voters as well.

      --
      kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
    110. Re:No, Seriously... by anaesthetica · · Score: 1

      China is not, nor has ever been, a major nuclear power. It has a nuclear arsenal about the same size as France and Britain – not even close to the same league as the U.S. and Russia. China practices "minimum deterrence" against the U.S., which means they target about two dozen or less strategic nuclear warheads at the U.S. The essence of deterrence is having a survivable second strike force. Since the Chinese are targeting so few, and they are land-based nuclear warheads (which are fairly easy to track compared to submarine-launched warheads), they are essentially not practicing deterrence against the United States. The U.S. is for all practical purposes capable of a disarming first strike against China.

      For further reading, check out the article "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" by Lieber and Press in Foreign Affairs 2006.

    111. Re:No, Seriously... by godglike · · Score: 1

      Is Sarah Palin mentioned in the convention?

    112. Re:No, Seriously... by godglike · · Score: 1

      Another point might be that the US itself is "too big to fail".

      Basically if the US were to slide toward serious inflation the rest of the world would buy currency to prevent a bankrupt US and the follow on depression. Until the depression becomes cheaper than propping up the US that is.

    113. Re:No, Seriously... by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 1

      OR we will have to build robots to tend to our old people. We will stick them in FEMA trailers and let the robots take care of them. Imagine roombas rolling around the trailer park carrying pill cups.

      I do like the drug-delivering roomba idea, except I'd have mine deliver psychedelics instead of regular meds.

      I'd call it a "shroomba."

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
    114. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will never see the Fed disappear. Bankers LOVE the existence of the current system of central banking and fractional reserve lending, because they get a cut with interest at ALL stages of money production. They charge us INTEREST for the money they lend in to existence, they charge us FEES every time we take up a bank account with them, and they get THEIR loans from the Fed at no cost. They LOVE central banking, and lobby hard enough that they'll never ever lose it. This means the government MUST keep its hands in business. When they don't, and they follow the mantra of "deregulate, deregulate, deregulate" that has been rolling for like the past 30 years, you wind up with crashes like the ones we've faced since 1987 till now.

      I would love for the government to go as hands off as you suggest, but it's impossible to find ANY economist with the opinion that the Fed should be eliminated who isn't regarded as a "crank" by his fellow economists. It's rather tragic, and quite discouraging.

    115. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arrgh! Damn it, where's my brain bleach...

    116. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All three translations of Aesop's fables that I own have it as the scorpion and the turtle.

    117. Re:No, Seriously... by Hemogoblin · · Score: 1

      We will see 6-10% inflation for 3 to 8 years sometime in the next 15 years, because that is the ONLY way the US government can get out of the financial hole we are in.

      That's one way. Another way would be to slash government spending, and raise taxes. Actually, the U.S. government is on a better footing than a number of countries, such as say, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Britain or even Japan (with more than 100% of GDP worth of debt). Greece is dealing with it now slashing benefits and raising taxes. To obvious huge political cost.

      It doesn't matter who will be running the US in 5 years; Democrat or Republican, they're going to have to raise taxes or/and cut spending.

    118. Re:No, Seriously... by timeOday · · Score: 1

      [Government] must accept that the only way for its share of the pie to grow bigger is to let the pie itself grow, which requires, at least in the short term, getting its hands out of that pie, and allowing the economy to grow bereft of any regulations at the federal level save, at most, those that are necessary to protect basic human rights.

      Where have you been? The under-regulated banking system self-destructed. That is the reason only a partially-government-run banking system now remains. Unregulated capitalism leads to horrible cycles of boom and bust. On the way up, all responsible actors are out-competed and choked off by people who are willing to take irresponsible risks. When the bottom falls out, it is not only the guilty who suffer. Unemployment skyrockets and (again, without government assistance) people starve.

      The idea that the economy grows best without regulations is a complete myth based on nothing. Counterexamples, on the other hand, abound.

    119. Re:No, Seriously... by svtdragon · · Score: 1

      So it would seem. Here's what I meant to link.

    120. Re:No, Seriously... by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 1

      The US produces quite a few basic consumer goods - food in particular. A plastic toy supply shortage will not cripple the US. Granted, the US does depend on imports for a number of fairly critical practical things.

      Practical things like all the drills, tools, bits, farming equipment components, chemicals used in farming ... and fuel that drives all the farming equipment and transportation of the end product to the mega-stores, fuel that allows the suburbia-dwelling, 2 hour-commute, blissfully ignorant of their massive dependence on their cars consumers to get to the store to get that produce (and to work) and on and on and on...

      Arguably, then the US is in the best place of all. For the last decade we've been receiving useful and practical basic goods in exchange for pieces of paper that you believe are worthless. Is it any surprise that US companies don't want to bother making these goods if others are willing to do so just for pieces of paper?

      Well, yes and no. From the very short-sighted, short-term perspective, yes, the scam went off peachy. But in the long-term you have one side whose manufacturing capability (and thus the ability to make real - as opposed to imaginary - products, combined with associated experienced labour force needed for this capability) ends up deteriorating to nearly nothing but who is awash in disposable, short-term-use plastic goods and consumables purchased on credit or in exchange for intangible vapour and the other who ends up with all that manufacturing capability, has robust internal market for its own goods, local support services, experienced labour force etc. but who also holds utterly worthless debt of the other. In addition to that, the entire "living standard" of the consuming side is predicated upon constant delivery of these disposable goods by the other, while the opposite is not true, delivery of make-believe paper "value" is not a necessary pre-condition to prosperity of the manufacturing side.

      Needless to say the moment the "value" of the debt being held by the manufacturing side comes in question, the entire scheme collapses, but the shock of that collapse will be orders of magnitude greater for the side that is not self-sufficient and in whose entire "way of living" will implode. Is recovery possible? Of course, but the "reckoning" period will be worse the longer this transfer of manufacturing capability goes on, and even at this point it is already destined to be utterly brutal.

      Right now manufacturing in the US tends to not be as cheap as it is elsewhere, but it isn't like the US couldn't build enough cars or whatever for its own needs.

      Not if the currency is worth shit and it takes a decade to rebuild all the wantonly squandered infrastructure. The US "rust belt" is pretty much completely dismantled as is the manufacturing capability of most major industrial companies. US imports nearly everything required for major production efforts, beginning with steel.

      Oil is probably the most critical imported resource, but the problems of oil aren't so much that the US depends on foreign supplies so much as that the entire world depends on a resource that will be limited everywhere at some point.

      True, but we were discussing the implications of US currency collapse and not of "peak oil".

      If anything the relatively untapped US local oil reserves will put the US in a good strategic position when everybody else is running out.

      Now thats funny. All the combined strategic US reserves are capable of sustaining current US oil consumption for about two months and most of the oil available for extraction is depleted (the US production peaked in 1970s). The "new" "untapped" reserves are of uncertain size, are of known extreme difficulty of extraction, yield heavy crude and other low-grade varieties etc and so on. If anyth

    121. Re:No, Seriously... by Alpha830RulZ · · Score: 1

      While I agree with your prescription, I think it's too late for that alone to be sufficient. Even if we fixed the current deficit, the current interest payments alone are some 20% of our spending. Somehow we have to pay back the principal.

      --
      I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
    122. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but she should be. I think having an ever-lasting boner can be fatal.

    123. Re:No, Seriously... by Logic+and+Reason · · Score: 1

      That is the traditional "rule", yes, but it's a stupid one. Punctuation should go inside quotation marks if and only if it's part of the quote.

    124. Re:No, Seriously... by IrquiM · · Score: 1

      I think it has something to do with Chinese savings now being the foundation of much of the western economy, and the fact that China is a major nuclear power.

      Please, don't confuse "western economy" and "US economy" - they are two different things, but you are correct in that US eceonomy is (or soon used to be) a part of the western economy.

      --
      This is blinging
    125. Re:No, Seriously... by kinnell · · Score: 1

      It isn't like a lump of gold has any practical use.

      Apart from it's use in jewelry, gold is widely used in electronics due to it's resistance to corrosion. It is the preferred material for wire bonding between silicon die and IC packages AFAIK. It is used for plating connectors in noise sensitive applications. It is used for plating PCB pads prior to soldering. If it weren't for it's relative scarcity, it would probably be used in most applications where physical strength wasn't a requirement. We'd probably gold plate our cars to stop them rusting if it were at all cost effective.

      --
      If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
    126. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem (with what you were actually saying) is that old people vote, and they won't vote for that.

      Yes, but they won't be doing much voting once the robots have 'taken care of them'!

    127. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would argue they bought or influenced every major media company, pushed a socialist agenda, and now we have a socialist president.

      You work for Fox 'News' right?

      Are you by any chance a 'birther' as well?

    128. Re:No, Seriously... by d34dluk3 · · Score: 1

      I didn't realize that there's actually a "zookeeper's dilemma." I was trying to riff off "prisoner's dilemma."

    129. Re:No, Seriously... by u38cg · · Score: 1

      Ultimately an ideal currency would have never-changing (but divisible) constant total circulation to which and from no one could artificially add or subtract.

      That is exactly what a gold standard is. There's only so much gold in the ground. Look, cash (and gold) are utterly fictional constructs. You can't eat paper, you can't burn gold to keep warm. No-one is required to have any faith in them. It works because if you become a creditor to the government, you are obliged to accept it in repayment, and the government will in turn accept it.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    130. Re:No, Seriously... by u38cg · · Score: 1

      You're correct (more or less) but the point is that China could (in theory; they almost certainly won't) start not rolling over debt as it falls due. I believe the bulk of China's dolar holdings are in five and ten year Treasuries, so this would be quite a bitter pill to swallow from a deficit-financing point of view on a medium term basis.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    131. Re:No, Seriously... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but most of the value of gold is in the fact that people like to stockpile it for whatever reason. In a major economic collapse (which is what the GP seemed to be concerned about) people aren't going to be worrying about manufacturing leads for microchips - they're going to be worried about dinner or not dying from an infected wound.

    132. Re:No, Seriously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem in Zimbabwe is that the government was handing out money on-masse to it's own tribe and giving the good ol' fuck you to everybody else.

      Fixed that for you.

  13. SHOCKING by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Who didn't see that one coming from a mile away? I called it the moment I read that there was a sophisticated attack on Google.

    Whether its all fabricated or not, I like the idea of Google pulling out of China. Google is one of the leading innovators in the western world - and by keeping their services out of China it sends a message to the government: Stop Oppression.

    1. Re:SHOCKING by FlyingBishop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It actually is fairly shocking they found evidence the Chinese government was responsible. Usually it's just "hackers in China." Who the Chinese can disown.

      You read that China was responsible in the same blog post that the attack was disclosed in, so you didn't really deduce anything of note.

    2. Re:SHOCKING by T+Murphy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't expect there's much surprise that the Chinese government was behind the attacks, but usually we can't do anything about it because we can't prove they did it. Google is saying they can, which suddenly brings this from muttering about China to companies and governments being forced to confront the issue in fear of explicitly giving in to China's every whim, as opposed to the implicit submission we've seen so far.

    3. Re:SHOCKING by gtall · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think your observation is apropos but could be strengthened a bit. Let's take it as writ that China's government is stealing. No doubt they have been stealing from Google as well. So in a world where information and its flow is your breadbasket, stealing information is like poking holes in the pipes leading to Google (1) losing control of information they are monetizing, (2) losing control over their own IP which is all that keeps them a step above their competitors (such as Baidu and a Chinese government backed Baidu that might attempt to compete worldwide with Google).

      So, Google, looking down the road several years realizes that unless they make like difficult for the Chinese government to get away with kneecapping Google's income stream over time, they used their specialized knowledge to trap the Chinese government.

      Another issue I think is that Google's control of information or at least monetizing it runs counter to the Chinese government's wish to do the same. There's no reason they would stop at controlling information within their borders. The interwebs have a way of allowing invasions of ideas, the very thing the Chinese government does not want lest their people get the idea the government is just a bunch of pikers who should be first up against the wall. So if Google came to the conclusion that the Chinese government's long term plan was a world-wide control of information, then they would have absolutely no reason to play the Chinese game and reducing their exposure to China in this instance is probably only Google's first step in what they might believe is going to be a long drawn out war.

  14. Write Google by WiiVault · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and tell them how proud you are that they finally took a stance befitting their "do no evil" stance. Better late than never, and they deserve our support for this courageous action. I for one have changed my mind about them significantly based on this single action alone.

    1. Re:Write Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they finally made a business decision that on this occasion falls in line with their "do no evil" facade.

      Fixed that for you.

    2. Re:Write Google by Dutchie · · Score: 2, Informative

      Curious what people think about Google's actions. Vote on: Don't be evil.

      --
      • Imagination is more important than knowledge.

        • -- Albert Einstein
    3. Re:Write Google by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 1

      In a way, I think they did better this way than if they'd just never agreed to filtering in the first place. They now have a presence in China, which they can remove, and it will affect China.

      When they were first asked to filter, they had no presence, and saying no would have meant very little to China: They'd just go on as they were, and do their own thing. Google pulling out now is a disruption.

      --
      'Sensible' is a curse word.
    4. Re:Write Google by Dutchie · · Score: 1

      If I get a large enough number of votes, I'll send this to Google.

      --
      • Imagination is more important than knowledge.

        • -- Albert Einstein
    5. Re:Write Google by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful
      People keep saying that, but I don't think they've analyzed the situation very carefully. Google has gone from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars in China in the past four years. That is really good growth. Furthermore, it's not like these attacks against Google hurt their bottom line in any way, they were targeted against dissidents inside China. If Google were really going after money, they could have gone the Yahoo route and given the emails to the government directly.

      It's easy to say that all corporations are faceless entities, but the truth is they are run by people, in this case, a major person running the company is Sergey Brin. He grew up part of his life in the communist USSR, so he has first-hand experience with oppressive governments. It seems he's thought seriously about whether he should do business in China, and you may not agree with their decision, but it doesn't matter what they do, not everyone will agree with it.

      In this case the result has seemed quite good, people in China are taking notice. As soon as the announcement came out, people starting putting flowers on Google's Chinese corporate office. One of the cards pictured:

      The card below was signed in English and Chinese by a group of self described Twitter and Google fans. An English note said "Thank you for holding values over profits!" Another note, in Chinese, reads, "Google, the mountains can't stop our contacts, and we'll get over the wall [a reference to the "Great Firewall"] to find you!"

      It seems some people in China are mocking Google for having 'lost,' so this sentiment doesn't cover everyone, but it has surely had a surprising effect.

      --
      Qxe4
    6. Re:Write Google by WiiVault · · Score: 1

      Citation?

    7. Re:Write Google by dj_tla · · Score: 1

      I just wrote that to a random contact on my Gmail Chat list. I'm sure they'll get it.

    8. Re:Write Google by natehoy · · Score: 1

      Dude, they already know about it. Count on it. They're GOOGLE, fer crissake... :)

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    9. Re:Write Google by Shihar · · Score: 1

      That might be good growth, but there is more than just than just revenue to consider. I think Google can make a pretty rational argument for getting out is simply a good idea from a bottom line point of view.

      1) China is a shitty market. Chinese have an annoying propensity to save. The rush into China has been fueled by people wanting to use it as a factory. As a factory, China is great. As a consumer market, it is more than a little lackluster. I am sure that will change, but right now, the Chinese domestic market frankly sucks.

      2) Google is crippled in China. Google is about information sharing and spreading. Google is making a phone not because it wants to make money off of hardware, but because they simply want more people connected all the time. Google always throws its weight behind increasing connectivity. It does this because it wants to be the information hub for anything it can get its sticky little paws on. Chinas limits on free speech and excessive bureaucratic controls even when you play by the rules makes Google's job as information master hard and expensive. China has a government that pretty much directly clashes with Google's business model.

      3) China is going to steal from Google and cripple or kick them out anyways. What has really pissed off Google is the IP theft. The Chinese government has stolen IP, and is going to turn around and dump it into its own state owned search engine. China is then going to set up onerous rules to make Google's life a living hell in terms of operations. Why suffer with that just to get crippled access to a few million peasants who hate to spend?

      There are decent business arguments for Google to stay, but I think there are a lot of non-trivial financial arguments to bail.

    10. Re:Write Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google is doing this to protect their own interests. They didn't just have some information on dissidents leaked - it appears that one of their servers were compromised, and that some of their intellectual property has been leaked to the PRC (and probably handed over to the Chinese equivalent of Google - free R&D in the PRC's eyes). Make no mistake - this is a business decision first and foremost - they cannot reasonably expect a business relationship to continue with the PRC if said government is willing to perform these types of action against them. Don't attribute to high moral ground that which can be explained by a self interest in not losing more intellectual property to China.

  15. everyone knew it all along by kai_hiwatari · · Score: 1

    Doesn't surprise me. Doesn't everyone know that it was them all along?

    1. Re:everyone knew it all along by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      I guess the only ones who didn't know were the people investigating the case.

    2. Re:everyone knew it all along by JBaustian · · Score: 1

      No one except China and Google know how badly China will be hurt by Google pulling out of China.

  16. next up... by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    google builds self-destructing data-centers that explode and erase all data when the chinese seize them...

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    1. Re:next up... by noidentity · · Score: 3, Funny

      next up... google builds self-destructing data-centers that explode and erase all data when the chinese seize them...

      Sorry, I don't think it's likely Google will switch to Microsoft IIS anytime soon.

    2. Re:next up... by Arthur+Grumbine · · Score: 2, Funny

      next up... google builds self-destructing data-centers that explode and erase all data when the chinese seize them...

      Sorry, I don't think it's likely Google will switch to Microsoft IIS anytime soon.

      I believe that you seriously misrepresent Microsoft IIS. I have significant experience proving that IIS does not require Chinese seizure in order activate its self-destruct sequence.

      --
      Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
    3. Re:next up... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      I have significant experience proving that IIS does not require Chinese seizure in order activate its self-destruct sequence.

      Just goes to show that your servers have been hacked by Chinese cyber-warfare units for a while now. ~

  17. Really? by rocket97 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Does this come as a surprise to anyone?

    --
    "The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
    1. Re:Really? by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      No. It’s more of an I-told-you-so directed at anybody who ever doubted it.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    2. Re:Really? by TheKidWho · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This question is repeated endlessly at almost every major world event, "Does this come as a surprise to anyone?"

      Stop already, its just a useless waste of bits.

    3. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your girlfriend is a useless waste of bits.

    4. Re:Really? by TheKidWho · · Score: 2, Funny

      What kind of /.'r do you think I am to have a girlfriend?

      Pshh I snort at you sir, now excuse while I go back to my parents basement to play WoW.

    5. Re:Really? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      This question is repeated endlessly at almost every major world event

      Does this come as a surprise to anyone? :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    6. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn’t say you had one. I said the string "Your girlfriend\0" is a useless waste of bits.

    7. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are we running out of bits?

  18. heh by mackinaw_apx+ · · Score: 0

    God damn mongorians, tear down my shitty (fire)wok! /southpark

  19. Consequences? by psherma1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the EU can fine a US company for what amounted to unfair business practices, what should the US do to China? Debt? What debt?

    1. Re:Consequences? by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 1

      As the government relies on foreign entities, mainly China, to finance the massive federal deficit, that would result in America becoming bankrupt over night.

      --
      There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
    2. Re:Consequences? by psherma1 · · Score: 1

      Likely true -- but I was just joking as to an appropriate size of such a "fine", that it would be massive, as is the US debt...

    3. Re:Consequences? by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 0

      As the government relies on foreign entities, mainly China, to finance the massive federal deficit, that would result in America becoming bankrupt over night.

      Not even close. I've actually been an advocate of the US wiping it's own debt slate clean with an eraser instead of giving in to foreign ownership. It would have the exact opposite effect of what you claim, and Americans would actually benefit.

      Now, since China has a standing army of 1 million+, they may be forced to face some unpleasant options:

      1) Shut up and deal with it.
      2) Negotiate.
      3) Declare war and attempt to take it from us.

      Not that I think any global superpower is immune to defeat/collapse (I do read history); I just think that at this point in time, the US is seriously ready to fight a huge global war again. Most of the people I know are sick of the US bending over and taking it in the ass from the foreigners because of some shit that happened before most of us were born and now for unknown reasons we need to make amends *cough*Obama*cough*.

      No one will like WW3, but there are plenty of us who are ready, willing, able, and actually waiting for it to happen so we can get back to progressing humankind.

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    4. Re:Consequences? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      the US is seriously ready to fight a huge global war again

      Global war? Shit, you couldn't take Somalia.

    5. Re:Consequences? by It'sVersusItsGuy · · Score: 1

      Not even close is right! While the color of your language is appreciable, your mastery of it is in doubt. You see, the word "it's" is a contraction of the words "it is." You obviously intended to use the possessive of it, which is spelled "its." If you don't like to see "the US bending over and taking it in the ass," perhaps you could try to do the same for the words we depend on to preserve our cherished freedoms.

      --
      - Tweaking the ears of the grammatically challenged since 2002.
    6. Re:Consequences? by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 1

      Not even close is right! While the color of your language is appreciable, your mastery of it is in doubt. You see, the word "it's" is a contraction of the words "it is." You obviously intended to use the possessive of it, which is spelled "its." If you don't like to see "the US bending over and taking it in the ass," perhaps you could try to do the same for the words we depend on to preserve our cherished freedoms.

      Nice troll! Made me laugh hard that you can't see passed one misplaced (obviously typoed) quotation mark to get the point of my post.

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    7. Re:Consequences? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If this isn't the mother of all troll posts, which is it then? Please, go to Iraq, do some "progressing humankind", i.e. get your guts ripped out by some roadside bomb.

    8. Re:Consequences? by ovu · · Score: 1

      note to self: do not vote for ground.zero.612

    9. Re:Consequences? by KudyardRipling · · Score: 0

      Have you considered the REAL purpose of the thousands of Chinese food take-out establishments? Could these (not) be fronts for PRC interests?

      --
      Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
    10. Re:Consequences? by Simetrical · · Score: 1

      If the EU can fine a US company for what amounted to unfair business practices, what should the US do to China? Debt? What debt?

      And then never have a foreign nation lend to us again? Have to pay higher interest rates to American lenders too, uncertain at our lack of scruples? Not a good plan. Besides, this kind of thing leads to retaliation, and everyone loses. We trade an awful lot with China, and it would hurt us noticeably if all that trade went to Europe instead.

      --
      MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
    11. Re:Consequences? by ground.zero.612 · · Score: 0

      note to self: do not vote for ground.zero.612

      STFU Donny, the Chinaman is the issue!

      --
      "Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
    12. Re:Consequences? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not even close is right! While the color of your language is appreciable, your mastery of it is in doubt. You see, the word "passed" is a past-tense word that means something has gone by. You obviously intended to use a homonym of it, which is spelled "past." If you are still confused after this description, you may wish to use the word "beyond" in this case to avoid looking like an idiot.

    13. Re:Consequences? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Somalia wasn't a war, though. It was (at least on paper) a humanitarian and peacekeeping operation that turned ugly - kinda not surprising when you try to pull that off in a middle of a full-scale civil war, but exacerbated by U.S. gung-ho attitude.

      Anyway, the point was that there was no winning conditions in Somalia; no "victory" to work towards. Hence why the relatively small losses were seen as unacceptable - there just weren't any strong reasons to be there in the first place.

    14. Re:Consequences? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

      The balance of trade deficit sort of says China needs us a hell of a lot more than we need them.

  20. News from our correspondant: Cartman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google: Stop Probing me!
    Chinese: Respect My Authorita!
    Google: Follow your own **** law. Screw you guys! I'm going home!

  21. MOD PARENT DOWN by troll8901 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Idiot AC is trying to troll by calling others trolls. Amen.

  22. Buh bye to China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know it was you, China. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!
    sincerely,
    Google.

    1. Re:Buh bye to China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're intent on pursuing this classic movie reference, you're going to need a bigger boat.

  23. What if *google* was was being used for espionage by gaspar+ilom · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What if the Chinese government feared that Google was being used to engage in espionage against its interests? (either by US intelligence authorities, or other actors, like Taiwan?) Hasn't Slashdot reported for years about hardware and software backdoors being mandated by government? Is it so hard to believe that the NSA might pressure Google (or, surreptitiously alter google.cn) to engage in espionage for the United States?

  24. Been complaining about this for years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Working for a Defense contractor, one of our systems was compromised. Fortunately, the idiot who gained access screwed up SSH which alerted us to what was going on, and prevented them from erasing their tracks. All SSH connections were from computers in China. They've been doing this for years, and no one has really called them on it until now. It takes Google to make a big enough splash before anyone really pays attention to it.

    1. Re:Been complaining about this for years by rgviza · · Score: 1

      How do you know they weren't proxies to make it look like the Chinese were behind it and take suspicion off of someone in the US, or even Russia? Did you do forensics on the chinese computers to find out?

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
    2. Re:Been complaining about this for years by ahabswhale · · Score: 1

      More or less this is a pointless question since you would have to violate their borders (by hacking them) to prove your point and even then you can't be certain. They could put botnet software on the machine they use to hack with just to say that they weren't responsible if they are ever caught. In the end, you have to hold their government responsible for what happens with their government's IPs and leave it at that.

      --
      Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
    3. Re:Been complaining about this for years by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      LOL I can just see what happened...the guy was at the end of a long day, just broke in and was trying to make a backdoor into the server.

      Chinese hacker: Finally! Now I install a custom version of sshd that logs me in as root with a special hidden username and password without logging anything! I just move the config file to a safe location, install my custom rpm and restart sshd...

      I should be able to log back in any second now...

      Any time now...

      What's going on?

      OH SHIT, I forgot my installer doesn't make its own config file but it still needs it! Now sshd can't start!!!!!

      FFFFUUUUUUUUUU

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    4. Re:Been complaining about this for years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Running proxies in and out of the Great Firewall seems like TheHardWay(tm) of hiding your tracks. Essentially giving a 3rd party logs of your exploit, etc. You know they must be able to log, what with all those 1TB hd's made there. Why not proxies in Tanzania, or East Timor, or any other random place with some kind of an internet pipe, and perhaps less gov't. I could see Russia, but it's unlikely, due to the data that is being reported as taken. I think...

    5. Re:Been complaining about this for years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not just defence contractors. Our servers are continually being probed and attacked by Chinese hackers, and we are just some small fry software company.

    6. Re:Been complaining about this for years by spinkham · · Score: 1

      I can't speak on this specific case, but in general there are specific areas in china and IP ranges where attacks have come from for a while, many of which have no resale value on the market, or political value only to China.
      One incident doesn't tell the story, but combined they do.

      See http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2009/10/report-on-chinese-government-sponsored.html for more details.

      --
      Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
  25. I for one... by Orleron · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ...welcome our Chinese Government Hacker Overlords.

  26. In the words of Master from Mad Max: Thunderdome by toejam13 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...embargo on!

  27. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by alewar · · Score: 1

    ... and that's why they hacked the emails of those human right activists?

  28. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take it easy, cowboy.

  29. Re:Confirmed: China is a "Developing Nation" by jimbobborg · · Score: 1

    The last time China was called on this, several members of the US Congress had their machines pwned. The reply from China? "We are not advanced enough to do this." Whatever.

  30. still no evidence linking the goverment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After RTFA it seems the only thing solid is that command server was located in China, them belonging to "agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof" remain pure speculation at this point unless some one come out and provide evidence that links to the government ,such as registration records or money trail etc. This could still well be the works by some local hacker groups, and since the servers being attacked is outside of China they are not even breaking local laws there. Though I wouldn't be surprised they have a wink-wink relationship with the local police.

  31. Obligatory... by s_p_oneil · · Score: 1

    Well duh...

    (I am honestly surprised that I haven't seen someone post that comment yet.)

  32. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by Lomegor · · Score: 1

    Yes, of course that can be. But if you or someone else (maybe the Chinese government) really think that that is the case, they have to prove it before making accusations.

  33. Fight China -- the capitalist way! by spiffmastercow · · Score: 1

    This is the answer, and we all know it.. If we move all our industries out of China, it becomes nothing but an empty husk. Google doesn't really have a lot to lose by exiting China, but it certainly makes for big headlines when they decide to do so. Maybe other corporations will follow. The only way Western countries stand a chance in the next 20 years is if we disentangle ourselves from China.

    1. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by number17 · · Score: 1

      How many foreign industries are actually in China? How many are simply Chinese companies subcontracted by US companies?

      I wouldn't build my own plant there because when labor becomes to expensive it will be sent to Cambodia or Indonesia.

    2. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by syntaxeater · · Score: 1

      And if China responds to our (at least for America) new iron curtain style of business by leveraging their hold on us (http://ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt/); potentially kicking the legs out from under an already fragile economic recovery... What is more empty than a husk?

    3. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by jgtg32a · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They don't have to pull out, but removing "Most Favored Nation" trade status might help.

    4. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      The "capitalistic" way on which US fought China is selling them debt in big numbers. So now each US citizen owes China thousands of dollars.That kind of attack is like hitting their fists with your face till their bleed. In the "free market" approach they already are the winners, and for a wide margin. Of course, US can declare that they won't pay that debt, because in China don't respect human rights, opening the door to every country that had any trouble with what was done in Guantanamo, or that don't have death sentences, to deny any debt thay could have with US companies/government aducing that in US they don't respect human rights neither.

    5. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by spiffmastercow · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but I think ~$680 billion is worth it to get out from under China's thumb. Hell, we gave the bankers more than that this year to spend on hookers and blow.

    6. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      It's already been addressed elsewhere but China doesn't have that large of a hold over our national debt. Their stake is something like 7%. Which is much less than a trillion dollars and we just printed off more than 2 trillion in the last year or so. If China just decided to call in our debt by dumping it on the market we could just print however many extra dollars that represented to buy it back with. This would of course cause some inflation but it'd be less than the last two stimulus packages caused.

    7. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by Froomb · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Since China is a full-fledged member of the WTO, MFN has now become a right of China, guaranteed by multilateral treaty. Attempting to enact trade sanctions against China would result in the U.S. being sanctioned in the WTO dispute process.

    8. Re:Fight China -- the capitalist way! by JordanL · · Score: 1

      Thank you Clinton.[/sarcasm]

  34. Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    Due to the "Great firewall of China", don't all outgoing connections from China have to go through a government-owned proxy server?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it has to indicate where to send the return packet somehow.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    2. Re:Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever heard of NAT?

    3. Re:Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If they are using something like a NAT Gateway with port mapping, then the actual IP address would not be visible outside of China. I thought it was standard operating procedure for hackers to route through several intermediates rather than connecting directly, thus increasing the time and effort needed to find the actual endpoint. I'm sure these hackers were smart enough to do that as well; the IP address seen from the outside may have nothing to do with the IP address the hackers was actually originating from.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    4. Re:Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but a NAT gateway isn’t supposed to arbitrarily trust just anyone from the outside to use it as a proxy server. Traffic coming from the NAT gateway came from inside its the private network.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    5. Re:Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does being inside or outside of China have to do with what IP address is visible?

    6. Re:Of course they are "proxies of the government"! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was in Beijing on business in August and I was able to VPN to both work and home without any problems.

      I didn't do a ton of browsing or anything without going through the tunnel but I did do some testing. They fail to resolve IP addresses for social websites was the biggest thing I noticed. Facebook, twitter, that sort of thing just failed to resolve from DNS. Being as how it's a totalitarian state and the government has a history of making people just vanish and nobody knows where they are or if they are any more I didn't want to push the limits but if you could identify the IP addresses of those sites, you could get some data from them. I have no idea about porn.

      As it was describe to me, they fear people organizing and using disinformation against them more than anything else so Facebook, twitter and blogs tend to be blocked. Also on CNN, anti-Chinese stories would just go black, they made no effort to hide the fact that they were censoring the content. The way CNN does news and stuff, they could just loop another story or something to fill the black space but they just turn it black.

      I thought the internet would be more censored but you have to be practical, what kind of proxy can proxy all of China? It's barely plausible to make a firewall do it, that's why they do DNS tricks. It also occurred to me that if you could find a good base of customers (maybe US universities?) you could spin up a close to zero cost cloud business and just build up virtual servers to terminate VPN connections from China and then put a fancy client on OpenVPN or something. The thing is, the average income is like $5000 a year in China, $5 or $10 a month for browsing is kind of a lot for those people, not to mention the lion's share don't have internet at home.

  35. What happens when China seizes assets? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the even that China gets pissed off, and simply seizes all of Google's assets in China while they're live, how much information do you think will be compromised?

    1. Re:What happens when China seizes assets? by markov_chain · · Score: 1

      That is exactly why Google doesn't have any major data centers in China- so not a lot.

      --
      Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
  36. Unleash the hounds by dave562 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Wall Street Journal had a great article about some of the details behind the scenes of this particular incident, and also another article that did a good job of summarizing what has been discussed here over the last couple of years. The main stream media is openly stating that the People's Liberation Army is actively encouraging "citizen cyber militias" to conduct "cyber attacks" (good Lord how I hate that term) against foreign (read, United States) corporations. Although they haven't gone so far as to state that those militias have active backing of the government, they have said that the government is turning a blind eye to their activities. Furthermore, the WSJ goes on to state that there are United States agencies involved in similar espionage activities.

    Given that background, it seems like hacking Chinese companies should be fair game for up and coming "security researchers" here in the United States. In the 1990s the United States government made it quite clear that they were going to come down hard on people who mess with government and Fortune 500 systems. Given the option between really securing the systems and punishing those who exploit the lack of security, they went with the latter. A lot of people, myself included, decided that once we turned 18 and faced the threat of real Federal prosecution, the wise move was to turn off the war dialers, stop snarfing ESN/MIN pairs out of the air, and stop trying to run exploit code against computers that we don't control.

    We can't hone our craft in the United States anymore. Although there is a whole market for securing IT resources against attack, there isn't a playground to pick up skills in. My suggestion is that China is that playground. My suggestion is that Chinese corporations in the United States are the targets. I mean lets face it, there are hundreds of thousands of compromised computers in the United States. The United States government can't be held accountable for malicious activity directed toward Chinese corporations. It would be unfortunate for those entities to be DDoS'd. It would be unfortunate for their internal workstations to be the target of vulnerability research.

    1. Re:Unleash the hounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damm straight, as above, +9 clue factor.

      China is actively hostile twords the US and we cannot have any intelligent conversation on this subject until we admit that they are at war with us, have been so for a very long time, and are actively attempting (and succeeding) at electronic warfare against the country, our economy and our businesses. This is only to be expected however; in case anyone hasn't been paying attention, China is busting at it's boarders and needs more resources. A direct military attack is normally what would be done except that in today's world such an attack would not be feasible due to overwhelming military concerns, nuclear weapons and so forth. The strategy then is to continue with the electronic pearl harbor, gain control of our industry thru economic means and then our infrastructure thru electronic means, and then that war can be fought and won without a single shot needing to be fired. China is the number 1 threat in the world today, not iraq or afganistan. I would further vote North korea as there is an unholy alliance there that seriously needs to be addressed in some fashion, but whatever it is gang, we need to stop feeding china economically and we need to start looking to home.

      We need further to begin developing our cyber expertise and there needs to be natural outlets for talent that don't wind up in jail or worse. That doesn't mean condoning outright criminal behavior such as theft or destruction of utillity grids, but it could mean providing positive redirection for those with talent who want to be on the right side of the law and do their thing with the support that a government agency could give.

    2. Re:Unleash the hounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets get forks and torches. Burn'em I say!

    3. Re:Unleash the hounds by EMG+at+MU · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting that the U.S. or its citizens commit malicious attacks against a possibly uninvolved Chinese company's networks?

      Would you also purpose that the U.S. or its citizens commit suicide attacks against the nations of origin of those who commit terrorist acts in the U.S?

      Your thought process is reactionary, and not wise. If we are to expect to live in a civilized world, we can't go around breaking the same laws and ethics we are trying to live by just because someone else does.

      As children we should have learned that just because little Billy broke the rules doesn't mean we can.

      As a civilization we should have evloved past an eye for an eye.

    4. Re:Unleash the hounds by Plastic+Pencil · · Score: 1

      I agree. Something needs to be done, and now. Why can I see the U.S. Gov't rounding up U.S. citizens who mounted attacks on Chinese, but not vice versa? As a U.S. citizen who just had their computer raped by a nasty virus last month that crushed my antivirus and sent keylogs to a Chinese web address, I have no freaking recourse, and I want blood. I propose a new cyber 'A-Team'.

    5. Re:Unleash the hounds by dave562 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who said anything about being malicious? I'm simply suggesting that there are a few subnet ranges that might contain systems upon which one might explore and experiment.

      WTF are you talking about... suicide attacks? How did we go from digital commerce to fanatical extremism that results in the loss of life?

    6. Re:Unleash the hounds by alop · · Score: 1

      I wish slashdot had a "Like" button.

      --
      --alop
    7. Re:Unleash the hounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Been there, done that. Only problem is that they don't have anything worth stealing. every peice of data they have was stolen from us.

    8. Re:Unleash the hounds by vvaduva · · Score: 1

      I couldn't have said it better dude...

    9. Re:Unleash the hounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine if China pissed off "the community"... Oh you want updates for your linux servers?

  37. Where is the report? by sydneyfong · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't find the link to the actual report in TFA.

    I don't doubt that there's a strong suggestion that the Chinese government was somehow involved in the intrusion attempts mentioned by Google, and generally it isn't Google's habit to lie or deceive in these high profile matters.

    But two days after the Google announcement a report comes out saying "yes it's the Chinese government, yes it's them!"? Without obvious links to the actual report?

    I just sense it's just the "security companies" trying to ride the PR bandwagon. I mean, it's just on everybody's mind, and "somebody had to say it out aloud". So you cobble together related bits and pieces and make a grand pronouncement, making everybody happy. But does it prove anything? Not until we find the evidence. Until then it's all just hearsay.

    Besides, would you really base your conclusions on findings from "VeriSign's iDefense security lab"? From the company who tried to f*ck up NXDOMAIN?

    This is not the end of the story. I suspect more juicy bits will come through.

    --
    Don't quote me on this.
    1. Re:Where is the report? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i can't find the report either, but I'd like to get my hands on a .pdf copy of it.

      oh wait...

  38. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by Jeng · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Gmail, the aspect of Google that was being hacked is not available in China.

    --
    Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
  39. Why would China do this? by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The premise is that China hacked Google to access the accounts of these Chinese Human rights activists. Given that Google already complies with Chinese law, why did China not openly contact Google over this?

    1. Re:Why would China do this? by spyrochaete · · Score: 1

      The premise is that China hacked Google to access the accounts of these Chinese Human rights activists. Given that Google already complies with Chinese law, why did China not openly contact Google over this?

      They probably did and were turned down. Yahoo didn't hesitate to provide this information to China when asked.

    2. Re:Why would China do this? by Scrameustache · · Score: 3, Informative

      The premise is that China hacked Google to access the accounts of these Chinese Human rights activists. Given that Google already complies with Chinese law, why did China not openly contact Google over this?

      Because the attack's targets go beyond the authority of their laws: a coordinated effort to target specific human rights advocates not just in China but around the world .

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  40. Oooo.... by Hasai · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but the only sort of "Stop Oppression" message a totalitarian state ever pays attention to is the the type that's steel-jacketed and arrives at a velocity of 930 m/s.

    A "stiff letter of diplomatic protest" doesn't cut it.

    --

    Regards;

    Hasai

  41. wait a sec... by TakeoffZebra · · Score: 1

    Doesn't the NSA already monitor and filter through Chinese internet traffic?

  42. Spying on their own citizens? For shame... by Orga · · Score: 1

    I'd rather have my information stolen by someone having the break in the backdoor (China) to get it then have them drive up to the drive-thru window and order it (US). At least the chinese have some concept of a battle. Here in the US we elect the people to bend us over.

  43. Remeber Estonia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The perpetrators turned out to be russian nationalist bolshevik youth. Same thing could easily happen in China, there's plenty of nationalists there. Probably just a few rouge ones wanting to help out papa state.

    1. Re:Remeber Estonia by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Probably just a few rouge ones wanting to help out papa state.

      Do they have decent healthcare over there? It might be scarlet fever, and that's quite infectious...

  44. China is so annoying by footNipple · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Because they (the government) seem like they have such an enormous small dick complex.

  45. and this is a surprise, exactly, how? by swschrad · · Score: 1

    even more fun if your computer uses processors that were fabbed in China, I suspect. else why would DoD have a certified fab system to insure there are no back doors?

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  46. revised Google motto by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 1

    Their famous "Don't be evil" motto will be very slightly clarified as:
    "Don't be evil (but being nasty to the Chinese government is not evil)."

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  47. Nature of the trade goods by TiggertheMad · · Score: 1

    The trade deficit through China is still in our favor - appears to be over 200 billion if I was looking at the right website.

    Also consider the nature of the goods being traded - if a large percentage of the goods coming from China are consumer goods, it isn't going to hurt us that bad to get in a trade war, it will just drive up prices for crap that really isn't that vital.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  48. It's the "public debt", not cash by newdsfornerds · · Score: 0

    I think it's mostly our debt they underwrite, and I think it's prolly over a TRILLION dollars now since in May 2009 it was $772 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

    --
    Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
  49. It says they located the Command and Control box. by motherjoe · · Score: 4, Funny

    In the article it says they located the Command and Control box. I did a little investigation of my own and see what they mean. It's oh so obvious this was perpetrated by the Chinese government. Just look at the facts!

    joe@joe-nix:~$ whois PwnedC&CServer.org
    NOTICE: Access to .ORG WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in
    determining the contents of a domain name registration record in the Public Interest Registry
    registry database. The data in this record is provided by Public Interest Registry
    for informational purposes only, and Public Interest Registry does not guarantee its
    accuracy. This service is intended only for query-based access. You agree
    that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no
    circumstances will you use this data to: (a) allow, enable, or otherwise
    support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or facsimile of mass
    unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations to entities other than
    the data recipient's own existing customers; or (b) enable high volume,
    automated, electronic processes that send queries or data to the systems of
    Registry Operator or any ICANN-Accredited Registrar, except as reasonably
    necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations. All
    rights reserved. Public Interest Registry reserves the right to modify these terms at any
    time. By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy.

    Domain ID:D2289308-LROR
    Domain Name:PwnedC&CServer.org
    Created On:05-Oct-1997 04:00:00 UTC
    Last Updated On:11-Dec-2009 20:14:46 UTC
    Expiration Date:04-Oct-2010 04:00:00 UTC
    Sponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R11-LROR)
    Status:OK
    Registrant ID:Bob@PRC.gov
    Registrant Name:Host Master
    Registrant Organization:People's Republic of China, duh!
    Registrant Street1:Main Street
    Registrant Street2:HQ for Cyber Warface against Capitalistic West
    Registrant Street3:
    Registrant City:Bejing
    Registrant State/Province:
    Registrant Postal Code:
    Registrant Country:CN
    Registrant Phone:+1-800-Yur-Pwnd
    Registrant Phone Ext.:
    Registrant FAX:
    Registrant FAX Ext.:
    Registrant Email:Bob@PRC.gov

    --
    "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Benjamin Franklin"
  50. Re:Not, Seriously... by tempest69 · · Score: 1
    If we took the (trade deficit to china) minus (value of the copyright infrined media) I might be able to pay that with the money between my couch cushions.

    Storm

  51. Re:In the words of Master from Mad Max: Thunderdom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    two man enter one man leave!!!!

    But let me see if I got this right. One of the largest data mining corporations in the world was hacked and they narrowed it down to who it was? Cool I guess. Seriously not a good idea to hack someone who has more data on you than most governments.

  52. Digital muggers by TiggertheMad · · Score: 1

    It's hardly a secret that governments conduct cyber-espionage - what seems shocking in this instance is that they have been caught and that a major company

    All governments spy. Its just good business to know what is happening next door. However, there is quite a bit of difference between keeping tabs on what other governments are doing, and aggressively stealing everything that isn't nailed down.

    A good analogy for this situation is that spying is eavesdropping. What China is doing is kicking in doors and stealing everything in sight. The former is expected to some degree by governments. The latter isn't.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  53. Identified by a US asset. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Identified by a US asset.

    don't forget that.

  54. google fault for plain text gmail? by peter303 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The greedy company wants to put ads into your email. So they keep the mail stored in plain text.

    I generally presume the NSA or google is reading any plain text anyways and dont dicuss anything I wouldnt want them to see.

    1. Re:google fault for plain text gmail? by Ksevio · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't call the greedy since otherwise they would need to charge money for it.

      More like YOU are greedy for wanting a free service without letting Google have a way to profit from it.

  55. No Big Surprise by jrbirdman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Web server log entries from the past 8-9 years show 95% of the attempted break-ins originating from China. They've been checking the locks on the doors and windows for along time. But, when I suggest that we simply block all IPs from that part of the world (I usually added a course explicative that conveyed that they could make sex with themselves), management says no. I'm a full-blooded capitalist and believe in the power of a free market and society, but this is ethics, pure and simple. If I were Google, I'd be spinning off large team of people to start working on hacking into anything in the PRC they can find. If the "Law of the Land" condones computer breaking-and-entering then, by God, full steam ahead!

  56. The solution is simple. by gimmebeer · · Score: 1

    All major defense contractors and military networks should host social networking sites geared toward anti-chinese discussions. That way, China's great firewall will block access to them, thereby preventing any further attacks from the Chinese.

  57. The "woman scorned" option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Isn't the use of Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi against the Geneva convention? We could get in a lot of trouble.

    There is a loophole that allows for such tactics. In theory, the ineffectiveness of either would be a suitable deterrent.

    On the other hand, we could send in Mrs. Tiger Woods with a 3-iron. Now THAT would be forbidden as a weapon of mass destruction.

    1. Re:The "woman scorned" option by SwedMiro · · Score: 1

      err...sorry..but Mrs. Tiger Woos is part of a Swedish new defence initiative, aptly called SWING. With all the latest cuts in our defence budget second hand golf clubs is all we can afford!

  58. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by hey! · · Score: 1

    Your conspiracy theory is inside-out.

    The ways this is supposed to work is that you explain something hard to understand at the cost of assuming something that is hard to swallow. It's all about faultless logic proceeding from readily manufactured premises.

    Although there is no evidence that the NSA is monkeying with Chinese search engine traffic, if we look at it as a hypothetical scenario, it doesn't contradict anything we know about the world. That makes this a weak conspiracy theory premise. You're supposed to start from a premise that is implausible ("organized labor is conspiring with the bankers"). What's the point of a conspiracy theory that is based on plausible premises? One might as well form a plain old theory.

    On the other hand, your theory fails to explain China's actions. Why would they need to break into the email accounts of their political critics *in order to address the problem of NSA spying*? It doesn't follow. What we're supposed to get by believing your theory's crazy premise is a slam-dunk conclusion to some mystery. Not only is the thing we want explained no mystery, if we buy into your theory we don't get any explanation at all. It's a dead end, because there's no logical connection.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  59. TFA Anyone? by FibreOptix · · Score: 1

    I'm having some trouble finding the original idefense report on this. Can anyone help a comrade out?

  60. the chinese have left us no choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    unleash /b/ and may god have mercy on our souls

  61. Another Angle by nemock · · Score: 1

    Google was already thinking to leave in September. From Forbes last month. http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/21/google-baidu-internet-intelligent-technology-fannin.html

  62. Assets attacked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the list of areas attacked, this looks like it could be the beginning(?) of an effort to steal the kind of knowledge that would allow Chinese companies to leapfrog competition and compete with the best of the Western companies... in addition to providing knowledge of those that are working against the Chinese Government. Two pronged attack on the financial threats (companies that might be able to provide services the growing Chinese market wants) and those that want to change the way the Chinese government operates.

  63. Non-issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Give me those e-mails. Not that big of a deal.

    ~ Hu

    Sent from my Chinese-Knock-Off iPhone

  64. Ball our fists, stamp our feet, by Shivetya · · Score: 1

    and wait for the next human rights atrocity they commit and repeat?

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  65. Ehm, proof? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ehm, where is the proof that the Chinese Government was behind this? If I read TFA correctly, "The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting". Nowhere in the article, it's even mentioned anything about the attack originating from Chinese IP addresses.

    And even IF the source are from within China, how is it proven that those IP-addresses are controlled by the government? And even IF the sources really are from China, how can it be proven that those machines wasn't in fact broken and hacked themselves?

    I do not for a second believe that the Chinese Government would even hesitate to do this, and wouldn't defend them even if didn't do it, but let's also remember that if I were a Chinese dissident, hacking some very world-public company, getting caught and making it look like the governments work, would be a pretty good way to steer global opinion.

  66. Your prices are wrong. by DJCacophony · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Try "You can have this regular chocolate for 49 cents, or this 'fair trade' chocolate for 15 dollars".

    --
    Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
    1. Re:Your prices are wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cake is a lie.

  67. Why don't they identify spammers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why don't these researchers put their noggins to work and identify the origin of spammers, malware distributers, and their ilk? Why don't the FBI and CIA coordinate their efforts, to, you know, catch criminals?

  68. Say Hello by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Say Hello to the New China, Same as the Old China.

  69. at least it wasn't a lead attack by greymond · · Score: 1

    I can handle the interweb attacks, at least we're not still being fed lead toys...oh wait...we still are...

  70. China only needs one IP address by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    Everybody in China can be on NAT behind the government firewall and content filter.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    1. Re:China only needs one IP address by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      <irony>Sure. There will be no scalability problem with 1 billion people trying to share 65536 TCP and UDP ports for each of a few IP addresses. There also can't be that many companies in China that would need a separate IP address to run HTTPS web sites for e-commerce, after all. Even if that were a problem, then they could all map under https://ecommerce.cn/company/ with no security implications.</irony>

  71. Not by Bardwick · · Score: 1

    You assume the US and China have an economic goal. China could easily turn it into a VERY expensive weapon.
    Never got any money back for a cruise missle either. Don't assume that money means financial.

  72. Is it just me? by C0L0PH0N · · Score: 1

    I don't understand why, if Google cares about its intellectual property, they don't have it secured against foreign attack. I even more will not understand, once they've been attacked, if they get attacked successfully again. Is it just me that is confused about why Google, and the US government secrets for that matter, aren't secured? I mean, it's been a couple of dozen years now that we've had the Internet, and we all know the bad guys are out there. How hard is it to SECURE data?? Maybe it's just me, being naive, and it really is impossible to secure data. But I know there are a lot of people in the world smarter than me, that must be working on this.

  73. Quadruple Quotes by AP31R0N · · Score: 1

    ""WtF?""

    --
    Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
  74. In other news... by thestudio_bob · · Score: 1

    China has quickly updated their standard tagline, "The U.S. needs to quit interfering with China's internal affairs and servers"

    --
    The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains /.
  75. A frame job? Not likely by kripkenstein · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I am the last person to defend the Chinese government - but I read the article and it is not too clear on how they determined that the source is actually the Chinese government? Is it all based on the fact that the traffic is coming from certain IP addresses or is there (hopefully) more than just that to support the conclusion. Not advocating anyone trying to hack google, but if they did - pwning some unpatched pirated copy of Windows in China to use as a launching point wouldn't exactly be the worst approach to keep the heat from finding whoever was doing it.

    Actually it would be a horrible approach, to fake an attack from the Chinese government's servers.

    If you are inside China doing that, then you aren't risking a fine or club fed. You're risking being put to death.

    If you are outside China doing that... then you are also risking your life. This isn't framing the government of Luxembourg. It's framing a non-democratic nuclear power that strongly believes in the death penalty and has a very poor human rights record. You don't frame a China or a Russia unless you don't mind getting radioactive elements in your water - or worse.

    If this was a frame job, the framers should be running for their lives right about now, and probably getting their heads examined if they live long enough to worry about why they were so stupid to frame China.

    So, it's possible it was a frame job - the public will probably never know. But I'd bet on the other option.

  76. Re:In the words of Master from Mad Max: Thunderdom by natehoy · · Score: 1

    Two countries go in, one come out.

    I'm not all that confident of the outcome, though...

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  77. Time discrepancy by kegon · · Score: 1

    Google is claiming that they've suffered an intellectual property loss due to a server compromise.

    No, their point is "It's one thing to get hacked but when it's the local government doing it while we're playing nice, I don't think so".

    The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture.

    Speak for yourself. Just because you arbitrarily decided to reset the clock 2009 years ago doesn't mean that the rest of us didn't count history before then. In fact, even non-atheists recognise that time did indeed exist before 1 AD.

    1. Re:Time discrepancy by dave562 · · Score: 1

      Speak for yourself. Just because you arbitrarily decided to reset the clock 2009 years ago doesn't mean that the rest of us didn't count history before then. In fact, even non-atheists recognise that time did indeed exist before 1 AD.

      I am not just speaking for myself. I am speaking for the Western world. I'm not a Christian and I could personally care less when Christ lived, died or did what he did. None the less, our "culture" has been around and is based upon a philosophical foundation that has been acknowledged for approximately 2000 years. Of course it didn't emerge in a vacuum, and it was built upon previous thoughts going back to the Greeks et al.

      Like it or not, we're part of a culture that focuses heavily on the returns next quarter. If we're lucky, "long term" thinking manifests itself in a five year plan.

    2. Re:Time discrepancy by PHPfanboy · · Score: 1

      The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture.

      Ergo, all Chinese people pre-date modern western history and all of them know, agree upon and recall perfectly all political games played there.

      --
      29 mpg. YMMV.
    3. Re:Time discrepancy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      None the less, our "culture" has been around and is based upon a philosophical foundation that has been acknowledged for approximately 2000 years.

      On the contrary, the western clock started once they wholeheartedly embraced a particular superstition (which is exactly the opposite of the progress you were implying).

      Posting as AC, because some future similarly-superstitious employer may try to google my postings...

    4. Re:Time discrepancy by kegon · · Score: 1

      I am not just speaking for myself. I am speaking for the Western world.

      Did you ask permission ? Seriously, how can you speak for the "Western" world ?

      None the less, our "culture" has been around and is based upon a philosophical foundation that has been acknowledged for approximately 2000 years. Of course it didn't emerge in a vacuum, and it was built upon previous thoughts going back to the Greeks et al.

      So you acknowledge that "our culture" goes back to the ancient Greeks, yet anything before 2000 years ago doesn't count ? Why not ? Coincidentally, the ancient Greeks were recorded to be around ~2000 years BC, giving "us" just as much history as the Chinese.

      If you're going to discount history that's not influenced by Christianity (itself a modern notion) then surely you have to compare like for like with a "common philosophy" held by the Chinese for the last 4000 years - which is what exactly ? Buddhism is only 500 years older than Christianity and Taoism not much more than that. It has to be some common core that is still relevant, it can't be 4000 years of people scratching their butts.

    5. Re:Time discrepancy by dave562 · · Score: 1

      You can try to argue semantics all you want. The FACT of the matter is that Chinese culture has evolved a longer term thinking AS A WHOLE than Western culture has. There are examples abound. You didn't bother to refute my point about corporate profit and short term outlook. Here's another thing to consider. How many extended families exist in China versus the United States? By extended families I'm using the term to refer to the situation in which multiple generations live within the same home or very immediate vicinity.

    6. Re:Time discrepancy by t0rkm3 · · Score: 1

      Also, if you do some real study of Chinese culture and history you will find that there were many disruptive and non-productive periods in their history. These periods would be analogous to the European Dark Ages. They have also regressed in tech and learning for extensive periods.

      Interestingly, I find that they nicely parallel the development of other civilizations, each with their peaks and valleys lasting for some time. I also tend to think (despite loving the language) that their language and culture retaining such a great deal of historical detritus is artifact of their current tech and knowledge discrepancies. As the culture and money sharing move into a more modern mode, they will probably undergo several stark changes that will create efficiencies and also make them more compatible with Western culture... but that's a long term vision.

    7. Re:Time discrepancy by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      The FACT of the matter is that Chinese culture has evolved a longer term thinking AS A WHOLE than Western culture has

      just because you put the word "fact" in capital letters does not make it fact. Do you have anything to back up your bold assertion? It just seems arbitrary lines are being drawn based on nothing at all. why is it that you think that "western" culture begins at 1AD? what happened at that date that scrapped all previous culture?

      what is it that makes you think that since the chinese have not decided to reset their calendar in the past 4-5 thousand years that there have been no cultural regressions/disruptions/reboots since the inception of that calendar? Europe didn't reset its calendar during the renaissance...

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    8. Re:Time discrepancy by dave562 · · Score: 1

      So far I've given some examples of short term Western thinking and long term Chinese thinking by offering specific ways that those thought processes manifest in the respective cultures. Do you have any counter points to offer? So far it seems like everyone is focused on arbitrary numbers and haven't offered up any counter points.

      Here is a good format for you to work with...

      "Our modern Western culture exemplifies long term thinking as evidenced by..."

      Here's a freebie for you.

      "...establishing military bases in key, resource rich regions like the Middle East."

    9. Re:Time discrepancy by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      I don't see how any of that addresses the questions I asked. They were quite specific, and these answers seem hand-waving at best, and totally irrelevant at worst.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    10. Re:Time discrepancy by dave562 · · Score: 1

      I'm not disputing any of your assertions, nor am I claiming that there haven't been any disruptions or that Western culture prior to the birth of Christ was scrapped when he was born.

      The point that I'm making is that Chinese culture exhibits more long term thinking than Western culture does. The 4700+ years of their calendar obviously isn't the most solid foundation to base that statement upon because as it has been shown, numbers are simply that. Over the span of milennia, of course there are going to be changes and trends that come and go.

      You can dodge and not participate or speak to the assertion that the Chinese, as a culture, in the year 2010 are more inclined to long term thinking than our leaders in the west are. That's your perogotive.

    11. Re:Time discrepancy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about Mao's five year plans? These aren't long term plans unless you assume that the current plan was planned back before the cultural revolution. Somehow, I don't think a move to limited capitalism was Zhedong's original intention.

      The continuous existence of a culture for a long time does not allow the implication that it engages in longer term planning than cultures who have existed for shorter times - it simply means that they've existed continuously for longer and does not account for length of planning (though perhaps success of planning whether short term or long term). How long has Australian aboriginal culture been in continuous existence for? It's a darn sight longer than Chinese. Perhaps the Chinese will self-destruct next year but western culture continues for another 10 millennia? Until a culture has failed, it's impossible to state for certainly what its exact longevity will be.

      Besides, this hacking of google seems to be an activity with a quite a short-term objective.

      btw, the word is prerogative.

  78. How about this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sticking with just the Google and China issues... is it possible the attack was simply China anticipating Google's current action based on the long talks regarding the search censorship? If that were the case then the hack is simply, as many have put in other terms, an attempt to gather better code to boost the efficiency and or performance of the major search engine that is supported by the Chinese government. Maybe the gmail accounts that were targeted were simply a deterrent of the real hack and done as an F-U reminder of how things are going to go down. Google hasn't really explained the full details of their intellectual property loss and they problem won't because of PR issues which is understandable. I think the server that was hacked and the data extracted is the real source.

  79. blatant Chevrolet copy by hugorxufl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This would have been the Chery QQ which GM accused the manufacturer of copying the Chevrolet Spark/Daewoo Matiz.
    Check out
    http://paultan.org/2006/02/18/chery-qq-crash-test/
    and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daewoo_Matiz

    1. Re:blatant Chevrolet copy by dave562 · · Score: 2, Informative

      This is what I love about Slashdot. The collective intelligence here is superb. Despite the frequent complaints about /. being behind the times when it comes to news, I find that topics are discussed here often months before traditional media sources pick them up. Reading the Wall Street Journal these last two days has been like a rehash of months old conversations, so much so that I was looking for the "dupe" tag to scrawl across the story in the paper.

  80. Suprised? by Wardish · · Score: 1

    And this surprises who?

    And if you are surprised, calmly put down the lenova and step away.

    --
    Ward

    . Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
  81. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by gaspar+ilom · · Score: 1

    I fully acknowledge that that is what appears to have happened. They also went so far as to hack/surveil accounts of dissidents outside China. I'm not here to defend the Chinese government.

    However, I am exploring what they *could* say, especially in the absence of official Chinese explanations, so far. For example: they could say they were exploring whether those dissidents had contact with foreign intelligence agencies. (Does this line of argument sound familiar?)

  82. see, had this notification by nimbius · · Score: 1

    arrived from the mouth of an independent hacker, perhaps l0pht or another fun group with a genuine interest in determining where the attacks came from and how they worked as opposed to VeriSign just coming around and telling me, id perhaps lend some credence to the notion it was china.

    instead this just looks like another megacorp security firm in the face of market recession trying to bang the drum harder and make money off one company in one isolated event that insists its been hacked by china with no independent third party review or proof.

    sure, many will cite politicians clamouring over the threat, the imminent and grave threat, that china poses to the US. these are the same politicians that marched us into iraq, and the same politicians that are perfectly happy on both sides to agree that war is necessary and the united states is somehow holy and just in waging it.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  83. It's not even illegal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Chinese government hacking the servers of commercial firms in other countries is not even illegal. They are following their own military commands. They have not signed or agreed to enforce those treaties. They are exploiting weaknesses in commercial assets to take them by guile and skill for their own use without recourse. How much longer do you think it will take for them to sign these treaties now? 10 seconds after effective security is installed?

    JJ

  84. Obligatory Chinese response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Who else is waiting for the obligatory response by Chinese ambassadors?

    "We, the Chinese people, do not appreciate your false reports of hacking, nor the false reports of the hackers being identified as Chinese agents. The Chinese government engages is no espionage of any nation, nor coerces anyone into anything against their will. Your comments have hurt the Chinese people's feelings. The internet in China is free. Please stop violating and respect our sovereignty and internal affairs. We demand an apology from the United States of America."

  85. Business is war...war is business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Business is war, most wars of the past were fought about the same things business strives for, money and taking what you can ffrom the other guy for less.

    Given the Chinese are fairly corrupt when compared to most western nations its no surprise they will you whatever tactics they can to eliminate or remove the competition in some way.

  86. Really by doomicon · · Score: 1

    "If the report's findings are correct, it suggests that the government of China has been engaged for months in a massive campaign of industrial espionage against US companies."

    Thank you Captain Obvious, isn't this common knowledge.

    --

    Awesome!
  87. Stupid Americans by cekander · · Score: 1

    Why does everyone here seem to be spewing out anti-Chinese propaganda? You do realize that the only reason the freedom of speech exists in this country [USA] was to win the support of liberal founding fathers who helped draft the constitution and rally the troops, right? There were serious capitalist interests in America winning their freedom, but they needed to convince the people it was worth fighting for. Don't get me wrong, in many ways because of the wording of this radical constitution, freedoms for people around the world have benefited... but this is almost in direct reverse-correlation to the effects of what the US government does. The people who gained power soon after the revolution was won, pretty much everyone after Jefferson, hasn't given two shits about civil liberties when not on the stump.

    And similarly, we need a Chinese history lesson, to learn how the power of people's rebellion, such as the boxers rebellion, shaped the current policies that helped the government reign in the control of their people.

    Trust me, if the US gov't didn't think their was any other way, then they'd take away our civil liberties too... err wait, that seems to have happened over the last couple hundred years.

    The fact of the matter is, the Chinese government and the American government aren't all that different (apologies to any chinese who may be reading, but yes, your government fucking sucks too). China has a completely different background, but have dealt with issues in a reactionary way that any wretched gov't in their situation would do. I wonder how long the US is going to get a free-pass because they have a bad-ass constitution (that is treated like the bible - good when it's convenient to conform to).

    Both gov'ts are FUBARed, and pointing fingers and rehashing tired propaganda only makes matters worse. We need some real solutions, and this requires you to forget about what you think you know about right and wrong (and blow up your nearest starbucks - unoccupied at night of course - in a symbolic gesture against the real powers that fuck up our societies more than we want to admit. yes, the coffee shops).

  88. Liar by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

    while I go back to my parents basement to play WoW.

    We all know you never left that basement in the first place. :)

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
  89. Have you heard of "buy American"? by Vicegrip · · Score: 1

    Not to be a party pooper, but you are faulting China for doing something congress tries hard at every opportunity it can to do as well: force government procurement to buy American first. And lets not get started on agricultural subsidies.

    The Buy American Act

    Sections 10 (a-d) of Title 41 of the United States Code are known as the Buy American Act (BAA). U.S. government exceptions under NAFTA Chapter 10 and the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement allow for such procurement preferences.

    The Buy American Act applies to all U.S. federal government agency purchases of goods valued over the micropurchase threshold, but does not apply to services. Under the Act, all goods for public use (articles, materials, or supplies) must be produced in the U.S., and manufactured items must be manufactured in the U.S. from U.S. materials. Many states and municipalities include similar geographic production requirements in their procurements.

    --
    Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
    1. Re:Have you heard of "buy American"? by dave562 · · Score: 1

      I think that protectionist measures are a good thing and have their place. The larger point that I was trying to make is that in the past decade, China couldn't have included such a provision in their purchasing processes because they did not have a domestic industry capable of providing what they needed. Now that they have co-opted enough technical know how from foreign firms, they are starting to protect their own industries.

      I don't place the fault on anyone. What we are seeing is the natural course of globalization. Economies are going to take from each other what they need. Being that economies are comprised of individuals, they will do what some individuals are inclined to do. Namely they will take short cuts and promote themselves and their friends at the expense of others. The funny thing is that Americans believe things like "intellectual property" laws will protect their R&D, or compensate them in the form of legal rewards. A government that oppresses its population with physical force and coercion isn't exactly a reliable partner.

      Expecting China to seriously and strictly enforce IP laws is kind of like expecting the United States to back serious war crime accountability processes in the UN. Neither party is going to give an outside body the ability to influence fundamental power dynamics within their own economy.

  90. don't buy chinese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China seems to have no regards for good citizenship in the society of nations. Why do we do business with a country like that? Is paying a little less for inexpensive toxic junk really worth it? Next holiday season, our entire family is considering a "china-free" gift-gifting holiday. Can't wait.

  91. And the fall out? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    So a government gets caught damaging a foreign companies resources.

    Isn't that grounds for war? Or at least some sanctions?

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  92. The big tip-off by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

    Security officials investigating the problem said that the attackers gained entry to the system first by establishing dummy accounts. They realized that these attackers were Chinese when they discovered all the personal information fields were filled in with "CHING CHANG CHING CHONG CHONG" - and the accounts all had suspicious-sounding names like "Warner Oland", "Sidney Toler", "Roland Winters", "Kristin Kreuk", and "John Bennett" - obviously failed attempts to concoct unsuspicious names...

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  93. Credible source by henrypijames · · Score: 1

    From TFA: "Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort."

    Right, for what possible sinister reason could people in the American "defense contracting and intelligence consulting community" have to paint China as a threat to US national security?

    1. Re:Credible source by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

      Because they actually are?

      Some times Occam's Razor gives the right answer.

  94. Re:What if *google* was was being used for espiona by denobug · · Score: 1

    they could say they were exploring whether those dissidents had contact with foreign intelligence agencies.

    You think human right activists will be CIA's next best friend after all those secrete presions they setup overseas?

  95. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  96. It's LOSE, you fucking LOSER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The word is "LOSE" with one O.

  97. Other options: denial or scape goat by mdmkolbe · · Score: 1

    Option 1: Pick a low level bureaucrat "persuade" him to write a self-criticism and move on.

    Option 2: Denial, denial, denial. (See Tiananmen Square.)

  98. Narcissus and Echo by microbox · · Score: 1

    The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture.

    The rampant cronyism and corruption in our society is a drop in the bucket compared to China. Damn straight they have an ancient culture -- and ancient problems as well. One chinese told me "dictatorship is in the culture".

    I would be suspicious of any government (or person) who *demands* that you reflect them back the way they want to be seen. The great glorious perfect nation of China is a lot like Narcissus in the story of Narcissus and Echo.

    --

    Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
  99. In Soviet China... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The government hacks you!

  100. Bow to your search engine overlords... by kd4zqe · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure that China knows what they're messing with. If they keep poking Google's assets, the GoogCloud could very well go SkyNet on their asses.

    "Google's Search Algorithm became self-aware at 3:37am on Friday, January 15 2010."

    --
    You're not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you...
  101. Most naive nation on the planet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are Americans the most naive nation on the planet or are there some other groups more gullible than the US and its companies? Unlikely - many Americans - and here I include the business leaders - assume that all countries just want to be like America so they will do what America assumes is correct. Sadly the US is wrong, but by the time they figure that out and realize that other nations, particularly China, are playing for real the US companies will be destroyed, most Americans will be out of work, the standard of living of the US will have plummeted and countries like China will be laughing at the gullibility of a once great nation. (And no, I am not American).

  102. Gill Bates =) by jokkebk · · Score: 1

    I find it funny that a China expert in the article is Gill Bates - it somehow fits the overall theme of this discussion. :)

    --
    http://codeandlife.com
  103. Guy made up the title - useless report by bitcalc · · Score: 1

    CmdrTaco didn't understand the original report and made up the title to attract eye balls. The original report says: "The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," What CmdrTaco and the report writer understand, "attacks" from your own computers, has now long been in history. Modern attacks use zombies as a commonsense. I would rather doubt the administrative ability of those IPs instead of believing their owners are the attackers.

  104. fat bloated tick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the chin*se government and its corrupt police and military thugs are a fat bloated tick sucking the life out of the chin*se population.
    anyone thinking of doing business with such a corrupt regime needs psychiatric help

  105. Cheap mudslinging by jandersen · · Score: 1

    So "researchers" have determined that this was in fact perpetrated by "the Chinese government"? Why is it that one should have confidence in an article that refers to unspecified "researchers" and "sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community"? As far as I can see, the article makes largely unsubstantiated claims, such as:

    The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof

    Why don't they tell us what that "single, foreign entity" is? Apart from the fact that you can spoof your IP address very easily; something I think we can assume a Chinese agent would take advantage of. In fact, if the IP addresses used are so easily traced back to China, could it not be because somebody wants to point a finger in that direction? Nah, I'm probably just too suspicious.

    It is not that I can't believe that an agency in the Chinese state would engage in undercover activity, even if the execution seems a bit amateurish; I just hate it when people insult my intelligence like this.

  106. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Universities: now is the time to step up, go public, and admit you too were victims of IP theft at the hands of Chinese. I'm at one of the top research universities in the US. I can tell you our data servers have been hit by Chinese IPs taking gigabytes of unpublished data. The university, however, is too PC to step and do something about it.

  107. oldschool for sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The hong kong blondes did it

  108. In Communist China by cander0000 · · Score: 1

    In communist China, search engine indexes YOU!