Black Duck Eggs and Other Secrets of Chinese Hacks

Roberto123 writes "Network World offers some insights into the way China infiltrates US organizations, physically and via computer, to steal information. Security expert Ira Winkler says there are far more serious threats out there than the 'laughable' uproar over China's hack of Google."

Comments

The article draws weird conclusions.

[flowerp]

My wife has no problems buying black eggs of any kind in asia stores in Germany. Oh, and black eggs can be mailed long distance, it's fermented and thereby preserved food.

And you really can't conclude from the menu of a chinese restaurant what's going or not going on behind the scenes. I call bullshit on this one. No corporate espionage ring would need to use a "safe house" or "safe restaurant" for that matter to drop off secret information or to secretly meet. It's the information age, dummies!

Re:The article draws weird conclusions.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF. Century eggs are to Chinese people what pickles are to Americans... they're not a rare delicacy at all. You can make them in your own home. You can buy them at the freaking Asian corner store. Anyone who fails to find a century egg in San Francisco is a real moron.

And organized crime? Give me a break. If you see sardines in a grocery, do you jump to the conclusion that it's operated by the Mafia?

I gotta agree.

[khasim]

And furthermore:

Besides continually innovating at hacking computer networks in the U.S. and globally, Chinese interests also hack companies physically by infiltrating them with people who can then be recruited as spies, Winkler said.

Huh? I can see infiltrating them with spies ... but infiltrating them with people who you will then try to recruit to be a spy?

Isn't that a bit ... stupid?

Re:I gotta agree.

[thesaurus]

And this is why we're screwed trying to stop Chinese espionage...our security consultants are frakking morons.

Re:I gotta agree.

[spazdor]

If the Chinese government is attempting this kind of extortion on a large scale, we have to assume that some of those attempts will be failures, and that some of those failures will be loud.

As far as I know, no Chinese immigrant has yet come forward with allegations that this happened to them. Which means either it's 100% effective, or else it's not happening.

Re:I gotta agree.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If the Chinese government is attempting this kind of extortion on a large scale, we have to assume that some of those attempts will be failures, and that some of those failures will be loud.

You are right, holding the family at home hostage is just stupid.
On the other hand - giving them special treatment, like getting the kids into a better school, moving a sick relative up the line for organ transplant, that kind of stuff is easy to do hush-hush.

And, of course, that's not the only thing they do. They also play on feelings of nationalism. Just because a guy leaves his country of birth for better opportunities doesn't mean he thinks the country is shit, in fact he may even want to go back and if he can contribute to the economic development of the country that may even make it possible for him to go back and get the kind of job that didn't exist when he left.

Why even risk the possibility?

[khasim]

Not if you know you will be able to manipulate the recruits. China has a lot of control over the lives of those peoples relatives back home.

Why even risk the possibility that one of them will NOT take the offer?

Cut out the middleman and simply send them spies to be hired. Spies who have ALREADY agreed to be spies for you.

Re:Why even risk the possibility?

[T Murphy]

A company won't likely hire or retain someone who seems to be a spy. Given new hires will get more attention, if they are all spies there is a fair risk of at least one raising suspicion- depending on how connected all the spies are, this can really cause problems for all of them. If China lets the new hires adjust to being a new employee, then pull them into being a spy, they can just focus on the ones who end up in positions or career paths that are useful for spying, and the spies are comfortable enough with their job they shouldn't be drawing unnecessary attention anyways. Also, college graduates have a lot of choices to work with- if they are allowed to settle down a bit, they won't see nearly as many alternatives to giving in to being a spy, should they not be nationalistic enough to like spying.

Companies aren't likely to hire senior engineers/programmers/etc. with their only work experience being in China- the best way to get someone into the desired position is to get hired from graduation and work up to the position. May as well let the future spy fit in as a typical bright college student, then deal with the spy recruiting phase between them getting hired and waiting until they've been working long enough to have proper access to the desired information or system.

What the duck?

[XiaoMing]

I'm not sure if the author of the article is actually a moron who can't shop and also a complete racist, or smart enough to realize his article would have no readers without putting in a culturally ignorant title, but I'd like to know where the hell he has been shopping in SF.

First of all, you can get black duck eggs damn near everywhere. I can get them in Fremont, Sunnyvale, or Cupertino, California at a variety of locations (Lions, 99Ranch, etc.), and I'm PRETTY sure you'd be able to find it in one of the biggest Chinatowns this country has to offer.
Hell I live in Madison, Wisconsin now and I'm 10 minutes (walking distance) away from a run down Chinese grocery outlet the size of a 7-11 that sells black duck eggs, and two out of the three crappy fast-food only takeout restaurants here serve porridge with black duck eggs.

To use decades old "cultural insight" that black duck eggs are a "Chinese Delicacy" without realizing that within the last two decades foods and goods Chinese people have only heard about in stories have become commonplace items not only in China, but also internationally as exports, is just pathetic.

But I guess there really was no other way to emphasize the ridiculously commonplace adage--that the human link is the weakest in security--without resorting to making ridiculous and dated cultural assumptions.

It's alright that he's not too good with cultures and people I guess. I mean, he's Russian after all, they're only good at math and physics.

Unsubstantiated, possibly racist FUD

[FoolishOwl]

The article basically lays out this argument:

1. There's a Chinese restaurant in the midwest somewhere that, shockingly, serves Chinese food.
2. Graduate students from China have been observed speaking Chinese on the telephone, and at least sometimes, they were speaking to the Chinese consulate -- which is suspicious, since consulates provide services to a nation's citizens living abroad.
3. Therefore, there is a massive Chinese campaign of computer espionage, which is so effective that we can't actually detect anything happening.

I read the article, expecting at least some cursory information about system cracking techniques that have been detected. Instead, there's just this vapid paranoia that Chinese people may be up to something. It smacks of racism.

Re:Chinese espionage is not innocuous

[jandersen]

The author didn't state it elegantly, but he still made the point -- Chinese industrial espionage is very real, is here now, and it is state-sponsored.

I don't think he - or you - has any point besides the obvious. Do you really imagine that guys like you are the only ones that know about these things? Or that China is the only country that does it?

There is no need to go looking for enemies in China or Russia - they are big nations, and they have a clear and obvious interest in not upsetting the balance in the world too much; if one of the big nations were to fail, it would hurt every nation in the world, so America, Russia, China etc are going to protect each others' interests and stability, at least against major upsets. Would China benefit from America suddenly being relegated to the bottom? Of course not - what would happen to their exports and the stability of their currency? No, China is America's friend, at least in the same sense that your business partners are your friends.

The real enemies of America (and China, Russia, ...) are the crackpots who are willing to throw away their own life to hurt you, followed closely by conspiracy theorists, that keep dreaming up sensational "threats", but somehow miss the real ones.

So, how do you know that you are not a conspiracy theorist? Simple: if you are willing to change your opinion in the light of evidence, then you are not one.

Re:Chinese espionage is not innocuous

[gov_coder]

China is not trying to 'kill' America. They are simply trying to steal from it. And that potentially amounts to a slow and painful 'death'. That the author advocates being cognizant of these facts is not ignorance or racism, but rather prudence. Like all facts, they must be balanced with others, for a wise perspective to take form; but surely the scale of Chinese espionage is something all of us can see as a significant problem.