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US Chamber of Commerce Infiltrated By Chinese Hackers
SpzToid writes "The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that a group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses of the United States Chamber of Commerce. The intrusion was quietly shut down in May 2010, while FBI investigations continue. 'A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Geng Shuang, said cyberattacks are prohibited by Chinese law and China itself is a victim of attacks. ... Still, the Chamber continues to see suspicious activity, they say. A thermostat at a town house the Chamber owns on Capitol Hill at one point was communicating with an Internet address in China, they say, and, in March, a printer used by Chamber executives spontaneously started printing pages with Chinese characters.'"
According the article, the group "gained access to everything stored on its systems" and may have "had access to the network for more than a year before the breach was uncovered."
Somehow I suspect these "Chinese characters" were just random ASCII characters you tend to see when a client with a corrupt printer driver tries to print. When some security official comes around asking about anything suspicious, John Executive takes to opportunity to jump up and do his part for national security!
Well deserved. Any organization that handles sensitive data, but puts even thermostats to internet as controllable online, deserve hacking.
Dont blame chinese. the hackers could as well be kiddies. Hell, it could as well be a random bot mistakenly and randomly gaining entry. Since the level of stupidity is as high as to put thermostats online as controllable from internet, go figure how did they treat rest of the network.
Read radical news here
Do you think China will be willing to shut down the rest of our lobbies for us too? Then we maybe able to accomplish something in government.
The US Chamber of Commerce is a LOBBYING organization (y'know, some of the folks behind SOPA and other crap) and is NOT the US Department of Commerce, the cabinet department that (supposedly) promotes economic growth.
I'm having trouble feeling bad or worried about this.
A thermostat at a town house the Chamber owns on Capitol Hill at one point was communicating with an Internet address in China
What the fuck is a thermostat doing being accessible from the internet?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Technically, partisan refers to Democrat or Republican... not conservative or liberal, so you're confused on that point. This is the technique all 'non partisan' organizations use to get tax exempt status. ThinkProgress is a 'non-partisan' organization, but they say on their website they are proudly liberal. However, I think the non-partisan label is ridiculous, because these days Republicans are entirely right-wing and Democrats are entirely left-wing. I am against 150% control of all aspects of my life from any entity, however I disagree with your characterization that corporations or people with money have that power. I could never buy another Pepsi for the rest of my life and Pepsi would have no power or control over me to do otherwise. The only entity with real power or control over my life is the government. I will never understand why you lefties don't realize that. You are perfectly happy with government reducing your freedoms in a real and draconian way, yet you wring your hands or march in the street because a company has the right to run an ad on TV supporting a political cause? Illogical.