Pledge Asks Chinese Hackers To Reject Cybertheft

angry tapir writes "Two prominent Chinese hackers have released a convention calling for the rejection of cybertheft and are asking their peers to support it, as China is increasingly seen as the source of international hacking attacks. The two hackers, Gong Wei and Wan Tao, released their 'Hackers' Self-Discipline Convention' to the Chinese media and posted its contents on the Internet. The hackers declined to offer further comment, but the document presents itself as a moral code that outlines appropriate hacking activities. The document states that hackers will not obtain money through stealing from the public. Hacking groups will also not spread knowledge or tools that are meant to take income. 'The public's privacy, especially that of children and minors, will be protected,' the document says. Any activity to buy or sell people's private information is considered inappropriate."

Comments

That way they will have more time to hack

[assemblerex]

American infrastructure instead.

Re:That way they will have more time to hack

[slick7]

American infrastructure instead.

Think of all the Chinese children that out-number every man, woman and child in the Corporate States of America. It's their patriotic duty! If the Chinese don't win, the terrorists do. Yada yada yada blah blah blah.

white hat vs black hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like someone's finally made the distinction between "white hat" and "black hat" hackers.

Amazing! Why couldn't anyone have come up with this idea before?

Re:white hat vs black hat

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the chinese wore conical straw hats

Re:white hat vs black hat

[RoFLKOPTr]

They paint them.

original article is in chinese

[excelsior_gr]

lacking a better translation, here is one from Google:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chowngroup.com%2Fconvention.html

oh great more chinese white hat wanabe it workers

[gl4ss]

this is like the n:th re-incarnation of such pledgers.
it's just common sense 1-2-3 - except with the viewpoint that they, as "hackers", are the new gods. fuck 'em, it's just chinese propaganda from another angle.
and that moral code of theirs is lacking, as it can be twisted to ban modchip creation etc(it takes income from game sellers).

(it's also a pledge to get away from being prosecuted for some what seems pretty minor defaces)

Is a Thieve's Cant coming next?

[Snotman]

err, I mean Hacker's Cant.

C'mon, treaspassing is illegal. So, these guys are hackers with a conscience. Oh boy! I can appreciate the value that hacking can bring, but it should always be at the behest of those who own the property that will be hacked. Otherwise, hacking is criminal. If you are going to be a criminal, then this agreement is a handicap. A prosecutor is not going to do a litmus test to see whether you are a unconscionable or ethical hacker. I wonder if they will have a Thieve's Cant. The only way this code means anything is if it can be enforced. Are we going to see hacker wars as the good fight the bad?

Re:Is a Thieve's Cant coming next?

[gl4ss]

Are we going to see hacker wars as the good fight the bad?

twitter is already full of that shit. you know, security experts shooting their mouths off and others replying. the white hats mostly come off as guys who want some federal cyber-terrorism-protection money, though, and the black hats who reply aren't real malicious black hats.

Good luck with that

[mwvdlee]

White hat hackers will sign it and stay good.
Black hat hackers will sign it and stay evil, with the benefit of appearing good.
Perhaps the chinese should re-introduce the evil bit.

Re:Good luck with that

[drinkypoo]

Black hat hackers will sign it and stay evil, with the benefit of appearing good.

Uh no. Only dumbasses of any hat color will sign it. Getting put on a registered list of hackers? Only a total moron would do this intentionally.

This is a good thing

[satuon]

Inasmuch as it shows that there are ethical people in China. We need reminding that good people can be found in China - not all of them are evil, which is the impression you get from news.

Re:This is a good thing

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Inasmuch as it shows that there are ethical people in China. We need reminding that good people can be found in China - not all of them are evil, which is the impression you get from news.

A smart man once said that the Russians love their children too.

Re:This is a good thing

[slashdime]

Inasmuch as it shows that there are ethical people in China. We need reminding that good people can be found in China - not all of them are evil, which is the impression you get from news.

If you need reminding that there are good [insert class/culture/race/country here] people, what you need is not rely on the "impression you get from news" and do your own fucking research. Stop being good "sheeple".

Re:This is a good thing

[cavreader]

I found my trip to China very enlightening when it came to interacting with the actual citizens. The people I encountered during my 3 week stay were friendly and showed no disdain or animosity towards me even when they found out I was from the US. Granted there are billions of Chinese citizens so my experiences do not carry much weight but I enjoyed the visit. I encountered the exact opposite experience when I was in France, England, and Germany. The people I met there were quite eager to point out all of the US faults. Once I explained I wasn't the one running things in the US and kindly told them to shut the fuck up before I demonstrated the stereotypical American propensity towards using violence to settle any disagreements they seemed to warm up considerably.

Re:This is a good thing

[TranceThrust]

What the hell kind of news are you watching then?

Re:This is a good thing

[Calydor]

And yet get that in America?

Re:This is a good thing

[ScrewMaster]

Inasmuch as it shows that there are ethical people in China. We need reminding that good people can be found in China - not all of them are evil, which is the impression you get from news.

A smart man once said that the Russians love their children too.

So do gangsters. What's your point?

How you behave towards people that are not part of your immediate circle is more telling.

Re:This is a good thing

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So do gangsters. What's your point?

That even gangsters are human too.

Re:That's just the old-school ethics

[slashdotresearch_mj]

It sounds like this is a topic you have some interest in? Would you say that this qualifies as "hacktivism"? That's the word I see most often used for this type of situation anyway. Just a research nerd wanting to pick your brain for research.

summary correction

[Gravis Zero]

China is increasingly seen as the source of international hacking attacks

correction: China is increasingly caught as the source of international hacking attacks

China is stepping up the the attacks but only more recently have they been repeatedly caught and "called out" on it on an international level.

All done!

[mwfischer]

I signed up and did all of that even though I'm not a Chinese hacker.

Someone sent me an official looking email and all I had to do was put my WoW user name and password in it. It didn't let me log in the first couple times so I entered it in a few more times for consistency.

China is increasingly seen as the source?

[microphage]

"China is increasingly seen as the source of international hacking attacks"

We should ask ourselves who also is top of the State Departments shitlist, is there a correlation?

Re:China is increasingly seen as the source?

[ScrewMaster]

"China is increasingly seen as the source of international hacking attacks" We should ask ourselves who also is top of the State Departments shitlist, is there a correlation?

Also ask yourself what address ranges most of the port scans in your firewall logs are coming from. You might get a better idea of what's going than trying to infer cause and effect.

I get some from India too, now and then (and just about everywhere else for that matter) but China does top the list. Whether all those hits are actually from Chinese crackers, or from people in other countries masking their origins I couldn't say.

I had one character from an Indian IP spend about four days trying to get into my FTP server: hundreds of attempts at guessing the password to the username "admin". It looked like he was typing everything manually, and he was very creative. Not his fault that I don't actually have an "admin" account, or even anything particularly valuable there anyway. Maybe he thought I work for the NSA or something.

Oh well.

Honour among thieves

[LongearedBat]

If you manage to convince people that you're a (relatively) good guy who is outside the law, then you can become classed as a rebel with a cause. Such people are often seen as heroes (like Robin Hood). If you pull that off, then you might get off the hook while getting others to be chased instead.

Re:Think of the children!

[ScrewMaster]

This is like pedophiles pledging to restrict their attentions only to children who want it.

Good analogy. Try again using a car.