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California Software Maker's Fortunes Track Dispute With Chinese Gov't
concealment writes "For three years, a group of hackers from China waged a relentless campaign of cyber harassment against Solid Oak Software Inc., Milburn's family-owned, eight-person firm in Santa Barbara, California. The attack began less than two weeks after Milburn publicly accused China of appropriating his company's parental filtering software, CYBERsitter, for a national Internet censoring project. And it ended shortly after he settled a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and a string of computer companies last April."
Slashdot had a dupe on the front page about the -6 share sale. This isn't news. However, the story disappeared after a handful of comments. Is this a switch in policy? Has this ever happened before?
Just because it's on the internet and not "irl" doesn't mean we can't go to war or at least start sanctions against a country attacking a company in the US. I'm suck if the government just ignoring it.
After learning that Chinese hackers had eavesdropped on the Dalai Lama and his staff using their own computers,....
I have the transcript of that spying translated from Tibetan to Chinese to English:
*An hour of breathing* Possibly meditation.
HDL: "We must show compassion and love towards the Chinese invaders. And make it very clear - NO VIOLENCE!"
*mumbles of agreement*
*An hour of breathing sounds*
*grabled*love them. May they be free from dukka. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum....Om mani padme hum....Om mani padme hum...Om mani padme hum....Om mani padme hum...Om mani padme hum
*goes on for an hour*
Chinese spy: "Those evil religious bastards! Exterminate!"
Let's face it, China has their own version of reality, and it's one in which they're going to do whatever they want, however they want to.
South China sea, Tiananmen Square, human rights, their vision of how trade works, Tibet and the Dalai Lama -- if you read press releases which come out of China, it's clear that either their grip on reality is a little off, or they just bravely put forth whatever their official lie is and expect everyone else to take it at face value like their citizens do.
It's all rhtetoric and bullshit when they make a public statement.
I'm not in the least bit surprised that this kind of attack may have happened if someone pointed out that China was stealing from them. They're generally pretty aggressive about such things. And they're entirely indifferent about IP rights of anybody outside of their country.
Its not news that when the chinese goverment doesnt like someone the hackers in China will start an "independent" atack.
An Internet security company that gets hacked by opening an email attachment .. I don't believe it !
Lines of code, what lines of code, opening webcams, black tape, is this some kind slashdot joke?
AccountKiller
Dude, don't feed the trolls.
Just move along. Nothing to see here.
From TFA:
"It looked like a routine message from Milburn, so DiPasquale clicked on the attachment, realizing only later that the e-mail address was a couple of letters off. Solid Oak employees received more bogus e-mails over the next few days, setting off alarm bells."
There is no advanced hackery here. Just the head of the company's daughter clicking on an email attachment by mistake, then chaos ensuijng. Thats when i stopped reading.
Every big country wants to be top dog, or a superpower.
China has wanted this for some time.
They fought a number of proxy wars against the USA, including the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In the former, Chinese troops met American troops in combat. In the latter, China provided weapons, equipment, aid and advisors to the North Vietnamese communist armies.
China is now building F-22 clones for its airforce, has a new carrier for its Navy, is waging constant and active cyber warfare against the US, and is expanding its trade strategy to dominate the US.
The war is cold now, but eventually it will be hot. Hold onto your hats.
I write lots of that "hidden computer code known as comments." I'm so l33t.
Watch how easily I launch an attack: /* format c: */
See how that worked?
Mainly because the USSR collapsed from within at the end of that time period. China has privatized, thus is not likely to the type of collapse that afflicted the USSR.
China wants nothing to do with a war with the west. Unless they're absolutely batshit insane. Building F-22 clones? Good. The US has 187 active (as in built, with many hours logged to test the hell out of components and with experienced pilots behind the stick). They've got an aircraft carrier? A single one? Golly. Wonderful. The US has 11, plus 9 amphibious assault craft that can act as carriers (plus 6 more in the hands of NATO allies). Trade strategy? You mean you think "attack the nation(s) that buy most of the cheap shit we make here" is a good strategy? China has a powerful economy without a doubt. It is still dwarfed by the US economy and will continue to be for some time, if not forever.
The only chink in the armour is Cyberwarfare. It's a possible problem, because China at least seems to be well ahead in that department. However it's of questionable value - cyberwarefare has never been tested on the ground. The closest we've gotten a full on cyber-assault during military operations was Anonymous attacking Israel during Pillar of Heaven and that didn't seem to do much.
Look, China is many things. It is a powerful, influential nation. It is not the USA, however. It does not have the economic power of the USA. It does not have the military resources of the USA - bodies for the army, yes, but precious little elsewhere. It does not have the allies the USA has - China opens warfare on the USA and you will see a vast coalition of western nations line up to knock China back to the stone age. Who comes to China's aid? Russia?
China has privatized, thus is not likely to the type of collapse that afflicted the USSR.
Why not? There are many, many signs of social tension within China. Its non-democratic government, the big gap between rich and poor people (and rich and poor areas), issues like Tibet, supression of dissidents, etc, etc. Much like the things going on in the former USSR.
Nor do I see much signs of these social tensions getting any less. More likely (IMHO), increasing. The information age we live in might give a push here, citizens wising up & refusing to take things any longer. So is it hard to imagine that at some point, China (as a single nation) would collapse, and turn into a number of smaller countries, like what happened with the former USSR? Maybe yes, maybe not, I wouldn't bet my money either way. China != USSR, and Chinese citizens might behave very different in the same conditions as former USSR citizens, but there's no denying there are many similarities here.
If that would happen, of course it wouldn't (immediately) make China go away as a superpower. But if there was one agenda for achieving particular goals, that would turn into many different agenda's trying to achieve many different things. Any individual one with less power behind it than what China can manage today.
I have a lot of sympathy for Solid Oak Software, I truly do. I don't even say that, if I were in their initial situation, I would have done anything different from what they've done.
So, said all that, it is extremely important to note, from this incident, that IP is ultimately pointless. Clinging to it will torpedo the countries' economies that depend on it. Sooner or later, countries that have enough muscle (China, and to an extent, Russia) will just say "fuck it" and not care about the hissy fits from the MAFIAA. I mean, WTF is the US going to do? Not buy Russian oil and minerals? Not have their electronics made in China? We all know that there would be much grandstanding (like, for instance, with human rights issues) but nothing more will be done. This is inevitable, like osmosis.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
A con man cheats an unwary person out of a dollar while a nearby pedestrian walks across the street without staying within the pedestrian lines. A nearby murderer yells "con man!" at one, and "jaywalker!" at the other. It can be argued that they are all lawbreakers and hence equally guilty of their respective crimes, but even a blind man can see a big difference amongst them.
Since all of us live here, it's incumbent upon us to avoid collapse if possible.
What kind of collapse are you thinking of? Gibbon and Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire?
Or more like Jared Diamond's Easter Island case study?
It seems Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies might be a good guide, but I'd prefer to hear the math or theories you're using to predict this.
This message is neither agreement nor disagreement with the propositions you have advanced.
Good answer:
I'd like to add that even if we egged them on, we did not "force" them to outspend their GDP in making military gear. They chose to do that.
Further, from what I saw, the USSR was massively unstable in every other way possible. Vast corruption, couldn't produce enough food, total lack of consumer goods, technologically backward, politically unstable and unresponsive chain of command.
I think when they shot down a civilian airliner and then claimed it was spying, while importing American wheat to avoid starving themselves, we should have known the USSR was circling the bowl.
Has everyone forgotten that they are authoritarian, sue-happy jerks already?
http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/CYBERsitter/
"In U.S. District Court in California, the presiding judge declared China in default in the lawsuit for failing to respond."
I guess the victim should show up with the sheriff and put China up for auction?
It seems as if these people knew their network was infected, resorted to bandaid solutions (like putting tape over webcams), and then continued to wonder why their systems were failing. You simply cannot trust a system once it's been compromised. It may have been a real hassle to rebuild all the company's servers, but ultimately less costly since business wouldn't be interrupted as much. Thankfully, they won the lawsuit so it doesn't matter any more.
Wouldn't loss of sales have more to do with all the crappy reviews for this product? Cnet user reviews have been destroying the thing since 2004 -- five years before "the Chinese" supposedly crashed his online sales.
Oh come now. If you going to insult the OP, at least back up your rhetoric with something coherent. I think Russia is much happier being a middling power now made of of a handful of oligarchs. Much more manageable.
Literally!
/One ticket to hell, please.
Yeah, fuck WindowA.