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US To Charge Chinese Military Employees With Hacking

jfruh (300774) writes "The U.S. federal government will announce today indictments of several employees of the Chinese military with hacking into computers to steal industrial secrets. The indictments will be the first of their kind against employees of a foreign government. Among the trade secrets allegedly stolen by the accused are information about a nuclear power plant design and a solar panel company's cost and pricing data."

11 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck with that. by pla · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No doubt, China will cooperate fully in extraditing members of their active military so they can stand trial in the US for following their orders.

    Not an Obama hater, but seriously, Russia and now China? Trying to start WWIII on two fronts, in case one backs down? 2016 can't come fast enough.

    1. Re:Good luck with that. by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If the democrats are the ones currently instigating WWIII than 2016 ain't going to help. If a Republican gets elected (unless it's Ron Paul, and I'm not holding my breath for that!) than their just going to look at the previous 8 years as laying the ground work. And any democrat that gets elected is going to assume that their election is voter approval of the current administration's policies, otherwise the voters would have ousted the Dems and brought in a Rep.

      In other words, in a two party system, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't...

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  2. These indictments are pure lip service. by Apharmd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How will the US enforce them? This will just make our government look weak.

  3. Re:Vs the NSA by erikkemperman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    TFS and TFA are both ridiculously vague.

    How exactly does this work, in terms of jurisdiction? Is this a case for the ICC? WTO?

    Or is it now (officially) the position of USJ that its jurisdiction covers the whole planet?

    --
    Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  4. Re:Vs the NSA by Bob9113 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    yeah it's weird in that regard that they went for opening that pandoras box... the chinese will just indict in response.

    Weird enough that it has me trying to figure out why they would do it. The other thing that seems weird is that we're charging the guys who were just following orders. Why charge the foot soldiers instead of the generals who ordered the action? It's a pretty extreme tinfoil hat scenario, but could they be trying to establish a story frame of throwing the boots to the wolves, so Clapper and Alexander don't go down?

  5. Re:Vs the NSA by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A country can claim jurisdiction anywhere on the planet, but the trick is to be able to enforce that claim of jurisdiction...

  6. Re:Very Bad Precedent by radja · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is already a precedent. German soldiers were tried and sentenced for carrying out orders in the concentration camps.

    --

    No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
    --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
  7. Re:Very Bad Precedent by HighOrbit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That opens the door to politically motivated prosecutions of civil servants who carried out a policy you just disagree with. Again, there are special crimes against humanity that everybody gets held responsible for, but do you really want to prosecute a worker-bee at the IRS because you disagree with an 'unjust' tax policy?

  8. China is hacking? There's a surprise by bobbied · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm just going to have a heart attack and DIE from that surprise..

    This is SO STUPID. If you cannot get your hands on the hackers to arrest them, then why bother with saying anything? Just keep the honey pot in place and keep tracing where the attacks are coming from. Then, when you can get your hands on them it's special rendition time. This tell the public what happened only serves to notify everybody that you got hacked and then trying to take legal action to punish the hackers which has no hope of doing anything says you are inept and clueless too.

    You knew I would drink from the glass in front of me, so you switched the glasses so the one in front of me has the poison... BUT, you knew I would think that so CLEARLY the glass in front of you has the poison.... etc.. We are right at the "Never get in a land war in Asia.. " Line being spoken by this administration, only they are not wearing the mask.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  9. Hilarity ensues by Virtucon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For decades now we've treated the Internet like an open house with everybody welcome and everybody allowed to come in and browse. As more and more technologies/designs/secrets have been put into computer systems they've been linked via Intranets within organizations and more importantly, and stupidly, on the Internet in the name of saving time or they've just been exposed because the people who are supposed to protect that information are incompetent idiots. That's the root cause here, not protecting the information that's held in those systems. China and other governments have employed script kiddies and any other tactics like purchased vulnerabilities to dig in, but again it's up to the holders of that data to protect it and to know what kind of enemies they're up against. Industrial espionage is nothing new, it's been around for centuries so why are we all shocked that this is allowed to happen? The secrets of the A-Bomb were leaked out of Los Alamos by sympathetic spies and some were executed for it. The B-29 bomber, a program that cost more than the A-Bomb to develop, was completely reverse engineered from one aircraft that made an emergency landing in the Soviet Union. It was copied right down to the same overheating engine problem that destroyed many of the aircraft. Chinese spies have recently been sent to prison for espionage so why is this suddenly news?

    While I'm glad that the US Govt. is trying to do something about all of this it's a bit late and ultimately it's up to all the industries that have technology worth stealing to start taking steps to protect their IP and their confidential information. This also means protecting yourself from the US government because as we all know the NSA is also passively watching everything you do. My suggesting is that there should be sufficient air gaps between your R&D/Competitive information and Intranets/Internet for starters and also start employing a risk mitigation strategy in your data handling practices because chances are your sensitive information is probably already public knowledge somewhere.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  10. Chinese official response by BradMajors · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Chinese official response (in Chinese): http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_ch...