Slashdot Mirror
China Wants Cyber Crisis Hotline
An anonymous reader writes "China should look at establishing a cyber crisis hotline with the United States, according to a Chinese newspaper seen as a window into official thinking. Discussions about a crisis hotline might seem an obvious first step in improving relations. But if it's a sign the Chinese government is beginning to think about how to coordinate a rapid, unified response to cyber emergencies, then it is an extremely important one."
Why should the US government aid the Chinese surveillance state any more than it already does? If there is hacktivism going on against China then so be it. China would do well freeing its political prisoners, such as the Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, and then it can ask for cyber help from the US.
...their government departments(including nominally private organizations like Huawei) and any company's assets within China all deserve to be compromised.
Of course, this won't sit well with the China apologists that will (inevitably) modbomb this - just that China gets too many passes than it really deserves.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
All the calls would be coming from the US, and China would just deny them anyway. If a global cyber attack starts affecting Chinese systems, then the PRC government just has to call down to whichever department or military unit is pulling off the attack, and tell them to cool it a bit. This is like a police department setting up a system to investigate robberies by talking with the pawn shop that happens to be the local fence. Not much is going to get done,
Chinese call going to US:
"You stop talking about Wayward Province of Taiwan, now or we filter all traffic!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm glad everyone is so skeptical of this. My first thought was, "oh, so then when they hack the crap out of us and we call to say we're having a 'cyber crisis' they can deny it directly..."
"Hello. Cyber Crisis Hotline."
Hi, I need a cyber crisis pronto. More than just the usual ICMP bombing or BGP storm. Something really noticeable with physical damage.
But, I don't want to get into releasing toxic industrial chemicals or the like. That has a bad rep after Bhopal. If you could do a SCADA subversion on a high water dam and release a massive flood that'd be perfect.
"No problem, sir. We have standard rates for major seminatural disasters. That'll be 100 million in gold to our Cayman Islands bank account for a standard target. If the country has nukes or an umbrella treaty with a nuclear power, that'll be 300 million and must be disguised as an IMF loan."
Its also a way to mitigate the US launching SLBMs at China in retaliation for cyber war.
The Chinese will try and talk down the National Command Authority.
And a hotline for when the U.S. is under cyber attack by China would be useful in assessing how successful the attack is going, and how it should be modified.
Of course, it is also possible it could be used for good.
Like a Hotline to Lord Voldemort for every time Harry Potter suffers one of those headaches.
"Hello, Lord Voldemore speaking. ... What do you mean you can see me in your dreams?!? And people call me sick!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
To have a hotline set up where the US can report to China that China is hacking the US?
Wouldn't the Chinese already know this?... oh wait... the call center would be in India.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.
Of course, it is also possible it could be used for good.
Suppose someone cyber attacks the U.S. and spoofs that they are China. Good communication might help sort it out.
Is "cyberwarfare" even technically or practically POSSIBLE? Or does it depend on the side being attacked being a total moron? I've never quite gotten my head around this : if you isolate the systems that can actually do bad things in the real world from external network access, for the most part the enemy can't do shit to you. As long as you keep those power stations and water pumps and all the other useful infrastructure, both civilian and military, on air gapped internal networks, it's going to be darn hard to sabotage them from across the globe.
Not impossible, I suppose...could fake a phone call. But cold war saboteurs could do the same thing, so nothing has changed there.
Now if you start connecting all your critical systems to the internet, and you don't use firewalls or they have security flaws, and you frequently stick thumbdrives full of possible viruses into your air gapped computers...well...I suppose you get what you deserve, then.