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Chinese Propaganda Accidentally Reveals Cyberwar

Posted by Unknown on from the us-replies-with-ping-of-death dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Chinese military propaganda video aired in mid-July inadvertently showed a Chinese military university launching cyberattacks against U.S. websites. The Epoch Times reports the video shows 'custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university.' A screen in the video also reveals 'the name of the software and the Chinese university that built it, the Electrical Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army.'"

21 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Script kiddies, seriously China? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apparently China's best and brightest hackers need a GUI with drop-down menus and a big "Attack" button.

    The sleeping dragon is strong indeed. I wonder if they have a "Pull trigger to fire" sticker on their rifles too.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Script kiddies, seriously China? by gnick · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Blatant sub-kiddie-script level hacking by the Chinese government (possibly the best funded cyber-warfare division on the planet) against the Falun Gong being "exposed" by a web site created by the Falun Gong? I wonder why my Spidey-Sense is tingling?

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:Script kiddies, seriously China? by Applekid · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apparently China's best and brightest hackers need a GUI with drop-down menus and a big "Attack" button.

      The sleeping dragon is strong indeed. I wonder if they have a "Pull trigger to fire" sticker on their rifles too.

      For the same reason not every single soldier knows how to make a rifle from raw materials. It's up to the weapon designers to build it and make it simple for the ground troops to use.

      Save the script-resistant sites (opponent military computers, etc) for the special ops, let the butts-in-seats brigade cause general casualties around the commercial non-hardened sites.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    3. Re:Script kiddies, seriously China? by asdf7890 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yep. Remember this is the same Government who use top Gun footage as evidence of a successful AA missile deployment test and hoped no-one would notice.

    4. Re:Script kiddies, seriously China? by Superken7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I thought that too.

      But now on second thought, it makes perfect sense.
      Skilled hackers can work on new stuff and on more important stuff, while unskilled "soldiers" can just use the tools to cause damage. Remember, not being l33t does not equal not being effective. As we have seen again and again, script kiddies have always been able to do successful attacks. Many defacers, as lame as they are, succeed in their goal of defacing websites. One member scans, another one prepares a message, the other hacks the website and uploads the material, etc..

      It becomes apparent that maybe this "section" does not intend to be cool or l337, but effective.

    5. Re:Script kiddies, seriously China? by DriedClexler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Based on the summary, it seems like you could at least partly corroborate the video by checking whether the "American university" mentioned really did have that IP address compromised, and who would have known about this when.

      --
      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  2. Re:WTF? Pre-post comment. by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because I'm so fucking awesome I can now post into the future.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  3. Re:WTF? Pre-post comment. by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Okay, actually, this article was originally posted at about 2 pm, but got bumped for the earthquake story. I got the one comment in before it got bumped, apparently.

    But I'm still fucking awesome.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  4. Re:WTF? Pre-post comment. by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Funny

    And I read his comment right after he posted it, tried to reply, and it was rejected due to an "unknown error". Then the entire article disappeared for an hour.

    I was beginning to think Chinese hackers took it down...

  5. Epoch Times founded by Falun Gong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's one detail to bear in mind when you read the article from The Epoch Times.

    From wikipedia: The The Epoch Times was founded in 1999 by supporters of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline. [...] The newspaper is heavily critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and policies of the Chinese government.

    1. Re:Epoch Times founded by Falun Gong by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Good point. However, the entire video is online on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Wu1HlZbBk&feature=youtu.be&t=36s. The interesting bits start at 36 seconds in. Anyone who speaks Chinese care to take a look at the entire thing to check for authenticity? The channel owner who uploaded the youtubee video seems to be fairly pro-China, but who knows... I have no idea what's going on in the entire thing. For all I know, this could be a video for how to create VB apps for a call center.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  6. weird by nomadic · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Chinese government has a weird obsession with Falun Gong, which I don't quite understand. I was in Flushing, Queens the other week and there was actually this whole (unmanned) table with signs, flyers, etc., blasting the Falun Gong as this insanely dangerous cult. I can't imagine who set it up other than the Chinese government.

    1. Re:weird by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

      A fair number of Chinese students seem to buy into the official party line, part and parcel. Over the past few years we've had some small demonstrations at the University of Washington by these students, protesting US media "lies" regarding Falung Gong, Tibet and/or the Dalai Lama, etc.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's pretty much my reaction about folks who are rabidly against Scientology. I don't get it. Pin someone down as to why they're so against it and they make vague references to someone somewhere being killed or something by a Scientologist. The same can be said about any religion.

      Anyway, back to Falun Gong. Here's what a Chinese ex-pat told me.

      The Falun Gong very quickly organized tens of thousands of people to gather - doesn't matter that all they did was meditate - and it scared the shit out of the Chinese leadership. The ability to get that many people together that fast and under the noses of the leadership is extremely worrying to them. THAT put them on the leadership's shit list.

      It's was interesting how he talked about the Chinese leadership. It was almost like a teenager talking about their overly strict and uptight parents. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be back by eleven - whatever." Rolls eyes.

      .... except when they execute someone for something ...

    3. Re:weird by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Falun Gong calls attention to how the Chinese Communist Party acts in opposition to many traditional Chinese values. This is incredibly seditious considering that the CCP relies on the Chinese achieving more or less blind unity based on what are pushed as shared cultural values.

      I was recently watching a CCTV documentary on the Seven Scholars of the Bamboo Grove, and like everything on CCTV I always start wondering 'what is their political angle?' And sure enough, they were primarily focusing on the Seven Scholars deliberate avoidance in politics and how that preserved them when others were being purged for their intrigues. The CCP wants people to avoid politics as much as possible, which includes any criticism of the government.

      Falun Gong questions the morality of the government and the CCP within the tradition three dimensional contexts of Chinese morality: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Even though China is a very secular society, these criticisms are very seriously taken by the CCP, which is always living in fear of losing control.

      If you're really interested you could look into the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party (which is banned in China) and the Tuidang Movement. Both of which are sourced in Falun Gong and do have an air of propaganda to them at times, but a thinking person can still find useful information even among such chaff.

      --
      I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
    4. Re:weird by shugah · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's funny - in Vancouver Falun Gong has had a permanent protest camp in front of the Chinese Consul General's compound on Granville Street for 10 years. It caused the city a lot of embarrassment when the city went to court to remove the permanent protest "hut", won at the BC Supreme Court but was over turned on appeal. They went back to the drawing board to draft a new bylaw that would outlaw permanent protest structures in residential neighbourhoods (Consul General is in Shaughnessy - a very wealthy residential neighbourhood) but allowed them in commercial areas. The city was embarrassed again when it came to light that the city manager consulted with the Chinese Consulate on drafting the bylaw. We should allow the Chinese government to advise us on how to handle a free speech? I expect the new bylaw will also be challenged as the consul general promotes trade and issues visas - so if they are conducting commercial activity, regardless of the residential zoning, protest structures should be allowed.

      --
      If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
    5. Re:weird by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't like religions either, but if the choice is freedom and religion or neither, I'll keep on tolerating religion.

      People may be wrong, but to force them to be right through prosecuting thought crimes is a disgusting dystopia that I will not accept.

      --
      I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
    6. Re:weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I guess what they don't understand is that in free countries we tend to ignore religious organizations no matter how crazy their beliefs may be unless they commit actual crimes (like breaking labor laws, child molestation, tax fraud, etc.). We may worry about malicious cults developing, but that's about it. The simple matter of believing something weird isn't criminal, no matter how whacked out, and most democratic constitutions protect freedom of religion including not practicing any religion at all. It's the actions that matter, not the underlying beliefs. And in that respect Falung Gong is probably less harmful than Scientology, and Scientology still exists, so trying to demonize the Falung Gong movement is going to be pretty futile.

      The reality is, the Chinese government is probably more worried about other Chinese students finding out about Falung Gong or other religions while studying abroad, so they feel obliged to encourage students that tow the party line to "protest" and discourage others from even looking. I don't think the audience for the protests is really people in the host country.

      There's considerable irony in the fact that China is taking advantage of the fact that protests like these are allowed in free and democratic countries, but probably wouldn't be at home unless they happened to align with party doctrine. They'll happily use freedom of expression in other countries, but goodness no, not at home.

  7. Re:In Republic of China .. by bluemonq · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wrong China.

  8. Re:WTF? Pre-post comment. by Kreigaffe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    actually, if they hit DC, we just declare the disaster so severe that the united states no longer exists -- they killed the beast! -- and then pick up right where we left off with USA2.
    Minus all our debt to them.
    Because that was USA1.

    --
    ... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about. :|
  9. Re:Streamlined by _4rp4n3t · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thank you fro the correction.

    I think you mean....ah, never mind.