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Chinese Hackers Steal Top US Weapons Designs
n1ywb writes "Chinese hackers have gained access to the designs of many of the nation's most sensitive advanced weapons systems, according to a report prepared for the Defense Department and government and defense industry officials,The Washington Post reported Tuesday. The compromised weapons designs include, among others, the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter." Also (with some more details and news-report round-up) at SlashBI.
Why is information like this on computers that are connected to the internet?
heh. heh.
Did they put all the weapon designs in the same basket? Didn't their grandma teach them *anything*?
I hope this opens people's eyes... The Chinese are NOT our allies, and it has been this way for years. Goes to show that the large corporations have more power in this country than the gubbmint and sheeple combined.
Now the Chinese government too can sink untold amounts of money on ultra-expensive gear? :P
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
What moron thought to himself that having sensitive blue prints to highly classified military equipment was best stored on a computer with Internet access?
Well now that the secret's out, maybe Congress will cancel these programs.
Maybe not.
So how was the Washington Post able to get a copy of the Confidential report from the Defense Science Board? Probably leaked by a Chinese hacker ...
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
The designs are in English.
now let them build what's in those plans, and go into perpetual national debt, crippling their economy, too!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Our government is terrible everything. They could have at least pulled a torrent fakeout type move and had the file labelled "F18 best plane ever", but the designs be for a sweet dirigible.
I'm sure they were going to end up making them for us anyway. Isn't that pretty much how we do things nowadays?
How else will they get all new warships and a new state of the art cyber terrorist unit?
China can steal all the designs they want, but without successfully implementing the designs, I'm honestly not that concerned. In the 1970s, China managed to kludge together a weak clone of Boeing's 20+-year-old 707, powered by what are believed to have been spare 707 engines. If you think China can manage to cobble together some F-35s that will be worth the effort, or some F/A-18s that can match US spec, you need to understand that it's easier and probably more cost-effective to place orders with Sukhoi Design Bureau for something that actually works than it is to duplicate the processes needed to actually create the American aircraft mentioned above.
China doesn't have the best track record in building designs stolen aerospace designs from other countries, and has found better success in getting people to willingly hand them the capabilities and processes. China's MD-80 license production and the assistance they got from McDonnell-Douglas is the biggest factor in their current aerospace pushes being at least semi-feasible.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
This is all a conspiracy by the US government. They *say* they got hacked and the designs got stolen, but we all know that sneakilly they've just given them all to the Chinese.
The reason for this is of course obvious: The Chinese can make these things much cheaper! So it's all about savings!
(If you think this might be something with tongues and cheeks, you might possibly be somewhat right)
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
So here's a question: What if the leaking of these designs was intentional? There could be several motivations for doing this. One, maybe these aren't the actual designs and they are flawed in some subtle yet crucial way or perhaps multiple ways. Two, they aren't the actual designs but the goal was to lure the hackers in to determine their methods. Or three, that some peacenik thought that it was unfair that the US has all the cool toys and are attempting to achieve whirled peas by way of leveling the playing field.
the AirForce being so bad ass at cyber-security (or cyber-surety, wtf/e)
Can't even keep a nigga's plans safe...
Maybe we aren't giving them enough money -_-
Now, put some new plans on the cracked network titled 'Top Secret: Strategic F17A Propulsion Update.doc' in which the engines are installed backwards, right in line with the fuel tanks. Wait for youtube vids.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Say, with tolerances off just enough so that it looks good on paper and when it's built, but when you actually try to fly the thing...and the Chinese spend the next five years working out the bugs.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I mean...could it be that the designs are actually collapsible? For example, just because you find something on the internet that technically works means that it is free from artificially introduced bugs. Imagine that the systems have bugs which allow for remote control of the Patriot system, or a JSF that can be controlled by remote control. It's much easier to build from specifications that have been tested and are working, but yet another thing with specifications that have been tested to work the "way" they were supposed to work.
the F-18 was a competitor to the F-16 design back in the 70's
we had black hawk's in the mid 1990's when i went to air assault school and they were at least 10 years old by that time as well
these were first designed in the 70's and even with some upgrades i bet smartphones have a lot more computing power than the aegis cruise
Patriot Missile: In service since 1981
Aegis: In development since the 1980s, first test 1999
F/A-18: Introduced in service in 1983
V-22:First flew in 1989, entered service 2007, was unreliable for several years after that. It took us over 20 years to fully develop it
Black Hawk: Introduced 1979
F-35: An expensive piece of crap that can do a lot of different things not so well (a couple gems from a 2011 Pentagon study: The fuel dump subsystem poses a fire hazard, The airframe is unlikely to last through the required lifespan, The aircraft is in danger of going overweight or, for the F-35B, not properly balanced for VTOL operations, There are multiple thermal management problems. The air conditioner fails to keep the pilot and controls cool enough, the roll posts on the F-35B overheat, and using the afterburner damages the aircraft.) Would be a waste of money to try and reproduce.
I am 26 years old, and most of these systems were in development or introduced before I was born. The 2 most recent technologies have been fraught with problems in development, production, and deployment. Maybe they should just go ahead and give the Chinese the F-22 plans as well, so half of their pilots will asphyxiate. I'm not worried about the Chinese gaining access to equipment that has been in use for decades: once something is out in the open and being used in combat/training operations, their capabilities are easily discerned and easy to copy. I would be more concerned if they got access to anything in development that we don't know about, the stuff the government is working on that they haven't revealed.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The best thing that could happen to the defense of the USA is for China to start building the V-22 Osprey. Better yet, maybe we could sell some to them. At cost even.
If you keep on losing the design drawings, then no wonder they're running into delays! They really should be keeping copies of them, so in case someone steals the originals, they don't have to draw them all over again.
These hacks show that traditional military is losing effectiveness. Just like during the Cold War with Soviets you couldn't fight Nukes with tanks and aircraft carriers, you now can't fight militarized hackers with tanks and aircraft carriers.
Sure, these tanks and carriers still have value, but they are not sufficient on their own. They can't protect us from our infrastructure, financial system, chunks of manufacturing and education all getting remotely wiped/disabled/overloaded from under us.
Only now we can't count on MAD - China has much greater governmental control over Internet and would have much easier time fighting off US cyber attack. The only way I see US getting ahead is if BG approach is implemented - absolutely no networking of mission-critical systems.
Big companies tend to misclassify IT as a cost center, and apply brilliant programs like Six Sigma and Virtual Workforces to cut expenses. I've seen plenty of dangerously unqualified people assigned to set firewall and router rules on networks that contain corporate crown jewels, or open NAT paths to offshore contracting houses brought in to help make a schedule after attrition and 'rightsizing' have made it impossible to stick to the schedule handed down from above.
In the old days this stuff would be kept on airgapped networks. Today we have 'globalized workforces' and companies are run by MBAs who don't really understand or care about things the military does. Patriotism? Doesn't appear in my mission statement...
Posted as AC as I work for a figurehead of this problem, and waste time keeping networks I'm responsible for clear of the APTs I see continually from other parts of the companies network that NOBODY wants to talk about. You can get fired for pointing out they've cut the budgets too far. So frustrating...
when you govt wants to put spyare on me let the chinese have all the tech
YUP WO THE FUCK CARES ...till then fucking suffer you scum sucking creeps
no me in fact HEY BOYS lets help the chinese teach these yankies a lesson WHO THE FUCK OWNS THE NET
LET ME KNOW WHEN YOUR NATION has had enough
DONT IT feel good to know the chinese are watching everything you do...hahahahahahahaha
These plans are littered all over the world. Every supplier of even a single part has lots of specifications and details of parts they have to interact with on their systems. If you hack just a few of those, you essentially get all the plans you need to build your own, or to find the weak spots in the design and adapt your own weapons on that. DOD may not have these plans on computers that are connected to the internet, but most suppliers do. It's a public secret these are the companies that get hacked and that is the way the plans get leaked or stolen.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Most high tech stuff you buy in the stores today is made in china. Just like the Japanese got mocked in the seventies, you're doing the same to the Chinese right now. The Japanese are in the world top when it comes to high tech, research and manufacturing capabilities these days. They have been there since the eighties. The Chinese may not be up to the level of the Japanese just yet, at least not on a big scale, but they are more than capable of producing high tech planes, rockets, computer equipment and what's required to make these plans interesting to them.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Perhaps someone thought it was a good idea to let China build the things and then buy the finished goods back off them, thus saving all that inconvenience of paying US labour prices.
Korma: Good
while other agencies are struggling to react to the sequester, the pentagon has clearly seen the benefit of using sensationalism, fear, uncertainty, and doubt to secure its funding.
the DoD keeps the red-menace ready to repackage and sell at a moments notice for good reason. Recently the president vocally and publically criticized the 'war on terror' and his intent to close guantanamo bay. for whatever thats worth to us its apparently enough to get the DoD to shuffle aside its 'terrorist' brand for a 'communist' model in the congressional windowsill. add a dash of "cyber" and a pinch of "hacker" and bobs your uncle, bills start to de-emphasize defence cuts a little more each week.
to dial back the crazy just a bit on this article its worth putting our interation with the chinese into perspective. we've schitzophrenically insisted china is both a major international trade partner as well as some sort of enemy communist nation. we're more than willing to buy practically every major modern convenience from toothpaste to cellphones without a concern for safety or security, however strangely enough we're also willing to denigrate and lambast the country on everything from civil rights, to working conditions. We are a walking contradiction of 80's cold war rhetoric and modern day milton friedman hand-over-fist greed that somehow has managed for thirty years to avoid the uncomfortable truth that china is in actuality a capitalist dictatorship.
what the DoD doesnt exactly recommend is the precise thing that would secure us from this manufactured menace: reduce the amount of off-shored and outsourced manufacturing to China.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The U.S. is the world's largest military power by far and has attacked numerous countries in the past decades. In the interest of a healthy balance, it might be for the better if countries like China that don't tend to start wars as much, caught up technologically.
Now that data i want to see show up on pirate bay, even if it results in TPB servers getting an strategic airstrike. Bet you anything some of these designs will have really low quality.
I can't help but get an image of the English soldiers in the American Revolution, standing out in the field in ranks, getting shot by George Washingtons troops, thinking, "WTF, man, you're not allowed to hide behind stuff!" Washington thinking, "Well, yeah, but... we're winning."
American diplomats in China saying, "Like, what the fuck, guys? We're not at war, why are you stealing our stuff?" Chinese guy just completely baffled thinking, "Ummm, because we're trying to win? You fuckers have been twisting our nuts in a global economic vise for half a century because you can't get over your own propaganda from the 1950s, and you don't get what we're doing? Idiots."
Strip away the right/wrong of it and just look at the realpolitik, it's kind of funny.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Sounds like an act of war. Why are we not fighting the Chinese yet? Oh ya. They're not a small impoverished country with limited ability to fight.
The heads of the people that let this leak be known. Not the hackers, not the people that made this information available on the internet, but the people that let America know that it was hacked. They will do jail time, and they will be the only people that do jail time.
American propaganda, psyched up rhetoric for forming public negative opinion on rival super power China, forwarded by Slashdot cooperator as expected.
Signature intentionally left blank.
Clinton probably gave them the password
FTFY
Australia are also on the band wagon too http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22685332 Seems like every hacker the world over now spoofs "inside China" as their point of origin. VM rental in Chinese datacentres must be big business in International espionage.
My mistake, sorry. I was actually wanting to make ultra-detailed model kits and to achieve this only with the original plants. And after I got the plans, I sent them to the Trumpeter and the Academy
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Me steal secret plans for Coke.
I can't help but wonder if this is all just disinformation. See, it would be to the U.S's great advantage to let the Chinese steal stuff & make them think that what they're stealing is genuine. Why else would they actually go public about something like this? Why would they want to admit publicly that this was real, when they redact so many less sensitive things in FOIA requests? This is either warmongering or an attempt to convince the spies that something extremely valuable was really stolen, and I highly doubt the U.S. military is interested in going to war against China.
Is not so hard to make a nuclear sub when you already know how to build a nuclear reactor, a conventional submarine, have enough smart people to work and much money to spend in research. Having the "secret plans" from someone can cut much research time, but are not required to succeed sooner or later.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Let's be serious, this is what really matters.
superspies w/ no research capability of their own
funny thing is darklocks tend to win a lot
I don't know whats worse stealing plans to ripoff weapons systems or the administration asking the Chinese to "please stop". When your security has any dependancies on asking others to behave themselves then you have already lost and are dead man walking publically admitting defeat.
Let me guess the attackers had chinese "IP addresses" didn't they? Goddamn fucking idiots.
China! Fuck Yeah!
What you gonna do when they stole from you!!
LOL
... to bankrupt the Chinese government by convincing them they need to build aircraft of matching capabilities.
Hey, that's how we won the cold war against the Soviet Union, but with missles
Design for Use, not Construction!
I don't buy it, I believe this is part of a sneaky program by the US Military to "leak" tainted designs to our military adversaries. "Give them what they want, but not the way they wanted it."
I kept reading this as "Chinese Hackers Steal Top US Website Designs"
I was all, umm, soo??
US foreign policy in the last 15 years has effectively constructed our own nemesis capable of usurping our position in the world. We've moved our manufacturing base there and devastated the working class here, we're locked into multilateral trade agreements that allow the Chinese to undercut our own industries, nevermind espionage when all the Chinese need to do for intel is look at the assembly line next door or drop a backdoor into the routers they're producing for our military, and our arrogant, abusive relationships with other countries as created huge gaps for Chinese vendors.
In twenty years, some people are going to be scratching their heads wondering how it happened.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I have several clients that are architectural firms, and weekly there is a new chinese rootkit trying to get into the system. They bury themselves into AutoCAD files and steal all drawing and design data and send it back to China. It's such a headache.
..the Russkies might have a need for sensors, but they were certainly ahead of everybody else in thrust vectoring. Watch those S300 movies on youtube and have your eyes opened.
step 1. Lower your employment standards. We all have a past... and smoke pot.
step 2. Raise your pay. Why would we work for you if we can make 2-3x in the private sector?
step 3. Start looking in the private sector for people who are well known for being badasses
step 4. After hiring them, actually implement their ideas.
If they got it from a subcontractor.
1. no longer use that subcontractor.
2. Investigate the subcontractor for putting the nation in danger and wasting billions in mil-tech
3. stop giving the entire plans to a subcontractor. They only need bits and pieces to create the shit you need. There is no reason they should know what its going into.
If they compromised our systems and stole it.
1. fire whoever designed that network/system architecture.
2. That system should not be running ANY daemons.
3. No one should be browsing from said computer.
4. Said system should also be firewalled off from EVERYONE.
5. the only way those documents get out is in pieces, and who has each of those pieces should be logged, and flagged if they receive too many pieces.
Thats where I would start at least.
Sounds like a great reason to stop all payments to China. IF it was really them. Our country has been systematically torn to pieces from protecting its own shores. There are non real manufacturing in the US anymore. The steel Industry is a pimple of its former self. Ironically Bethlehem Steel was the site of China city in the movie Transformers. A casino has the most massive overhead rail crane ive even seen. All our electronics TMK and are made abrode. Our war making ability has been farmed to what will turn out our enemies. Mostly Corporate America and our very own Voted in Government. This is MO take it with a grain of salt but its still MO.
Jack of all trades,master of none
In the old days this stuff would be kept on airgapped networks. Today we have 'globalized workforces' and companies are run by MBAs who don't really understand or care about things the military does.
Unbelievable. In the old days defense contractors had to pass security audits. What happened to them?
This comes out of the desire to not pay people what their work is worth or even close to it so that powerpoint fiends can keep a bigger share of the profits.
ITAR regulations are meant to keep sensitive data protected from corporate psychosis but obviously they don't work or are too loosely enforced.
Everyone knows the Death Star plans are not in the main computer.
It's more about finding the weak points of even established systems by mining the progression of change histories - some of which might be embarassingly non-durable band-aids that can really be exploited during a shooting war.
guess how much that cyber-theft you.
Can't we just have peace? I'm really really tired of having this constant looming cloud of impending war. Is peace really too much to ask for? I understand most countries have political problems, I understand we have economic ones.
But moving into my prime years, and thinking about the long term well being of myself and the ones I love is really causing me to look passed all the details. I couldn't care less if the Chinese have some fancy toys, i couldn't care less if some ass hole across the world beats his chest and threatens the rest of us, I couldn't care less if some ass-backward country doesn't have ALL the human rights the rest of us enjoy. Just leave it alone, and don't involve yourselves with them; to hell with globalization. Quit being patriotic, quit thinking you have to police the world, quit meddling with all of our lives.
You all do realize that if any sort of conflict between two super-powers erupts, the entire world will be severely involved and/or affected? If such a thing happens, we're all royally screwed. There would be no hiding from it, no economic shelter, nothing. Please, think about that the next time you want to "support the troops", or complain about other governments' actions like a lot of people are on this thread. Nip this war-talk in the bud. That applies to the other side as well; it applies to all sides.
</incoherent_rant>
"Only the dead have seen the end of war" - Plato
Turns out the F-35 program is a red herring to the chinese!
Now THEY can spend billions trying to get it to work!
that's just an excuse to approve new cybersecurity bills... oh look, we got hacked because we don't have those cybersecurity bills approved yet. Let's hurry up and add some!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
ixnay ethay isinformationday iscussionday
Obama is visiting China soon, he should just tell the leaders there, "Since you've taken these items we'll just cancel our debt to you and call it even".
I can tell you that when I worked as sysadmin responsible for about 20% of the network operations of one of the biggest names in the defense industry, they were more concerned with passing their ISO 9001 audit than they were their government security audit -- and the latter was where they were in the worse shape, by far. Take away from that what you will, but I know it made me sick at my stomach, and is one of the reasons I got out of there.
We need to make a huge statement and start putting people in jail. China has more intelligence resources here than we do. Start by kicking students, scientists, and diplomats out of the country.
...about the Osprey.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Harbor Freight shopping list:
[_] Air Compressor, 5 Hp, 60 gallon
[_] Shop Press, 20 Ton
[_] HF-35A Joint Strike Fighter, 25 ton
that I was knocking Australia yesterday for having allowed so much to leak to China. And here is America showing that our nation is up for sale. We had W/neo-cons push America towards buying Chinese goods as well as pushing the USN and other military to be on MS windows, and now, we pay the price for that.
Windbourne( hanging head in shame ).
1. This stuff should be on air gaped networks, nuff said.
2. The US should punish china with ugly tariffs over this. Make it not in their national interest to do this. Cut china off from our scrap market for 6 months, etc.
China needs us way more than we need them. I think it's time we make this obvious to them.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
So, is it available to the rest of us yet?
Part of the problem is the fact that the US classifies anything that even looks like it might be sensitive. While there are some arguments that this might be prudent, the problem is that everyone involved with those projects has to have a clearance. I rember a report from the Bradly Manning media circus that there were multiple millions of people in the US with a security clearance. And that is part of what is being discussed in the BBC article you linked to. You can try and compartmentalize, but once compartments are not nearly as secure as the airgapped ouside fence. Ironically, a more secure approach is to classify fewer projects, and as a result have signficantly fewer people with access to the real secrets.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
I can tell you that when I worked as sysadmin responsible for about 20% of the network operations of one of the biggest names in the defense industry, they were more concerned with passing their ISO 9001 audit than they were their government security audit -- and the latter was where they were in the worse shape, by far. Take away from that what you will, but I know it made me sick at my stomach, and is one of the reasons I got out of there.
That's plain old scary. I don't know whether they don't understand network security (a little hard to believe) or are just lax. The DoD used to be serious about security audits, and I know that post-9/11 it became much harder to get a security clearance. It makes no sense, but then again it is a government operation.
Hey, it is the following on from the american way *tongue firmly in cheek*
Look at any apple product - "Designed in Californa, Assembled in China"
Security audits cost money. They can be cut from the budget, they're just useless cruft.
Not a sentence!
...The Cylon bootstrap process ?
Since you're both black, I though you might know each other...
I designed a SCIF (Secure Information Facility) as part of the F-22 program back in the 90's. Then the requirements were simple no networking between the inside and the outside at all. Makes sense. Having said that
F-35 can shoot down F-22
F-22 can shoot down F-16
F-16 can shoot down F-15
F-15 can shoot down F-4 which the North Vietnamese never could shoot down
Can't shoot the F-14 down for two reasons 1) no longer flies and 2) when it did it could shoot you down with the Phoenix missile from 125 miles away.
As a Phantom jock I must say "Better a sister in the whorehouse than a brother in an F-14"
Beside all of the above planes have killed more of their own pilots than enemy fire. F-14 A/B flat out unstable.
Everytime we think we're getting a great deal at Walmart buying cheap chinese crap we only make them richer and more powerful. Buy American (admittedly when possible) s about security, not just consumer greed.
They don't find Capt America juice and Iron Man schematics we'll be fine.
I have the same questions, why are these things in reach from the net, no one knows what security is?
Maybe us gov should get some competent security experts.
I wonder who weighed the value of having that info on-line vs the risk that it would be stolen. My bet is no one - That they just did it [i.e. incompetence].