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US Hacked Chinese University Network

An anonymous reader writes "Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reports that Tsinghua University, widely regarded as the mainland's top education and research institute, was the target of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year, according to information leaked by Edward Snowden. The information also showed that the attacks on Tsinghua University were intensive and concerted efforts. In one single day of January, at least 63 computers and servers in Tsinghua University have been hacked by the NSA. The university is home to one of the mainland's six major backbone networks, the China Education and Research Network from where internet data from millions of Chinese citizens could be mined. Universities in Hong Kong and the mainland were revealed as targets of NSA's cyber-snooping activities last week when Snowden claimed the Chinese University of Hong Kong had been hacked." The U.S. government is reportedly hacking into Chinese mobile phone companies as well for access to text messages. In related news, the U.S. has asked Hong Kong to extradite Snowden, and the petition to pardon him has met that 100,000 signature threshold required for an official response from the administration.

18 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. If China by purnima · · Score: 5, Funny

    got nothing to hide, then China has nothing to worry about.

  2. **WHO** is the real traitor ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Snowden a traitor ??

    What about the government of the United States which has violated the Constitutions of the United States ???

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re: **WHO** is the real traitor ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ahhhh bullshit. Snowden is a true patriot. It's the NSA who are the treasonous cunts.

    2. Re: **WHO** is the real traitor ? by lightknight · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. He committed treason against those who, from many appearances, have committed treason (using the same definition).

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    3. Re:**WHO** is the real traitor ? by lightknight · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So...why does the NSA help build back-doors into our products? This makes them less secure, not more so.

      No, this is not about good guy versus bad guy. It's about two people fighting to see who gets to be your master.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    4. Re:**WHO** is the real traitor ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What kind of whistle blowing crusade is he on by revealing US espionage programs details to the Chinese and then seeking shelter with them? Whatever other things he may be doing, that part at least is treason.

      The Chinese already know about the US espionage programs, they've been complaining about it for many years, you just haven't been listening. The US public on the other hand thinks the Chinese government unilaterally started a hacking war in the past year. Snowden is a patriot who's calling out those who would lead us into another war.

    5. Re:**WHO** is the real traitor ? by datavirtue · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True, the Constitution is just a god damned piece of paper but it doesn't remove the fact that Congress, the courts, and the Executive branch have started to completely ignore the spirit of the document while paying homage to it in their oaths and campaign speeches. So what is it? Are we living by the god damned piece of paper or not!? One or the other. Either burn the fucking thing and quit pretending so we can happily go about stoking our crumbling empire or uphold the principle which is freedom and limited government. The pretending is just going to continue to be a source of problems.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    6. Re:**WHO** is the real traitor ? by Spottywot · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm curious, what would it take for you to acknowledge that Snowden might have betrayed his country? A parade through Red Square? Pictures of him wearing a FRS (nee' KGB) colonel's uniform like Philby?

      Kim Philby hailed as 'great spy' in Russia

      It's fairly simple actually, double agents don't advertise themselves in the media. You may not agree that his Whistleblowing was in the national interest, but to compare him to Kim Philby, probably the worlds most famous/notorious double agent is disingenuous at best, and government propaganda at worst.

      --
      In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
    7. Re:**WHO** is the real traitor ? by Omestes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Last time I checked, politicians could still be voted out of office by citizens, and corporations couldn't hold office or vote.

      This is true on paper... But voting requires an informed public, the government is becoming fully opposed to this. I wouldn't vote for any politician that had a hand in the NSA's actions... But I'm not allowed to know this. If I have no way of knowing if my rights are being abused, how much, or by whom, how am I supposed to vote in an educated manner?

      Transparency is a necessary requirement to informed voting, and transparency is increasingly seeming anathema to our government.

      Further, it is harder to be a responsible voter thanks to politicians using money and psychological marketing techniques instead of actually talking to us like understanding people. There is no debate in this country anymore. The only issues you ever get to hear about is "Did You Know John Smith Want to Kill Your Children?!".

      The only point in which your correct, is the end result of this reasoning; we, sadly, very much have the government we deserve. Which is depressing, since I never thought I'd actively be ashamed of being American. I never really thought I could buy into the idea that our government is out to get us, and has nothing but general contempt for us. These statements are becoming more true feeling everyday. I'm beginning to sound like a tin-foil hat Libertarian, of late, which depresses me since I really can't stand most of their ideology (being a far left, progressive, social libertarian).

      We really need a Roosevelt (zombie Teddy, or zombie Franklin, I choose you).

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  3. Re:big effing news by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But only one nation rides around on a high horse openly accusing others of it all the time. And that nation just got caught doing the exact thing it accuses everyone else of doing, and doing it on the scale that many didn't even think possible.

  4. An illegal war? by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Our own military brass has spoken publicly about how state sponsored hacking might constitute an act of war and could result in a Kenetic response. In that context the NSA has endangered our nation by potentially starting an unauthorized war with China. When will these dangerous criminals be controlled.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  5. Re:I was entirely sympathetic to Snowden by purnima · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When did China become an enemy of the US? As far as I know it's a competitor, it is a steadily growing economic giant. Yes, but hardly an enemy. Unless, of course, we're back to 1972 when everyone not in the English speaking world that is not a CIA run dictator is an enemy. Frankly, the US is too small and becoming too irrelevant to safely classify the large chunk of humanity called China as an enemy.

  6. Re:Of course they have the moral high ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    against China, you couldn't even have this conversation on any Chinese network, that's why US government has the moral high ground against communist China.

    Don't you find it disheartening at all that this is always questioned?

    When it comes to how the nation treats its population you seldom see the U.S. compared to civilized nations.
    If you use the worst nations in the world to justify what your government does then you will end up among the worst.

    You can tell a lot of man by the people he compares himself to.

  7. Re: on a high horse openly accusing others by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure. Let's talk about Stasi and how they could only pull spying on much lesser scale. Surely that was also justified?

  8. 1972 called by purnima · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "This was the week that changed the world, as what we have said in that Communique is not nearly as important as what we will do in the years ahead to build a bridge across 16,000 miles and 22 years of hostilities which have divided us in the past. And what we have said today is that we shall build that bridge" I think that other corrupt president of the USA said that. Tricky Dick Nixon,

  9. Bet the Whitehouse will reject the petition? by srijon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From petitions.whitehouse.gov: "In a few rare cases (such as specific procurement, law enforcement, or adjudicatory matters), the White House response might not address the facts of a particular matter to avoid exercising improper influence."

    This allows Obama to simply say "We cannot comment on the Snowden petition, since he is subject to an ongoing legal enquiry, and we must avoid exercising improper influence."

    Meanwhile, several members of government have already declared Snowden guilty of treason without trial - no improper exercise of influence there, right?

    Anyone with thoughts about how the petition might have been worded to avoid this loophole?

  10. And you think that means they don't get spied on? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Spying on foreign nations is the NSA's business. If you don't like that, then it is something to take up with your representitive, but I would have to ask why all of a sudden you have a problem with it, since that has ALWAYS been its business. The NSA is the US's signals intelligence agency. It's reason to be is to spy on the electronic communications of foreign powers.

    Now, you can argue the US shouldn't spy at all if you like, but you do have to realise that would put the US at basically the only major nation that didn't. More or less all nations have intelligence agencies. The UK has the SIS (and the Security Service to an extent), France has the DGSE, Canada has the CSIS, Switzerland has the NDB, Finland has the SUPO, China has the MSS, Russia has the SVR (and realistically the FSB, FSO and GRU as well). Nations spy on each other. They have for a long, LONG time.

    The flap with the NSA is that they have been spying on American citizens. That is something they are not supposed to do. While some countries, like China, have a unified intelligence apparatus (the MSS is their spy agency, secret police, all that jazz), the US purposely has divided agencies. The NSA, CIA, etc are not supposed to collect intelligence on Americans. That is only supposed to be done by law enforcement, and then only in compliance with court orders.

    That the NSA would spy on other nations is not only unsurprising, it is the reason they exist.

    In terms of China being an enemy, well you can't really think in those terms. Nations don't have friends and enemies so much as they have interests. As such other nations can align or not align with those interests to different degrees. If you mean an enemy as a nation they are at war with then no, but of course they US hasn't officially gone to war in a rather long time. However China is certainly a nation the US would have many reasons to watch. They are quite authoritarian, the military is heavily mixed up in their economy (I'm talking direct ownership of things), they have imperialistic ambitions and they have a lot of weapons. Thus it should not be surprising if the US has interest in watching them.

    Also if you think the US is irrelevant, you need to wake up and have a look at world affairs. The US is an extremely influential country in a tremendous amount of ways. It is the only military superpower at the moment, it controls the world's reserve currency, it has the largest economy in the world, it exports culture (in the form of books, TV movies, video games, that kind of thing) like no other in history and so on. You might wish the US was not relevant, but it is, very much so.

    Also it isn't small. Buy a globe. Or use a search engine. The US is the 4th largest country in the world by land area, and 3rd largest by population. If that is "too small" by your metric, then I don't want to know what you rank most countries (which are, by definition, much smaller).

  11. Re:big effing news by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Factually false. Neither Russia nor China practice such propaganda on scale anywhere near that which we get in US/UK sourced media.

    Source: I'm fluent in russian and follow on some of their more reputable news agencies alongside outlets like al jazeera to offset the bias from following BBC, france24, euronews and reuters. While everyone tends to blame others for wrongdoing, the scale and depth of blame laid on others is massively greater in Western media. I would describe it as the "need to promote the illusion that we have a best country, government, political and economical system them anyone else". China, Russia et al do not have a need to promote this as their citizens are under no such illusion.