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Chinese Government Implicated in DoS on US Site
HP LoveJet writes "US maintainers of sites dedicated to falun gong, a meditation technique whose practitioners are being systematically harassed by Chinese government authorities, say that recent attacks on their servers are traceable to--guess who?--the Chinese government. Scary stuff. "
Errrrrrrrr, just who *exactly* in the US Gov't do you thing would go after China for this? Think about it. We just reaffirmed their MFN status, after all. Despite all the hordes of scandals --
* Organized illicit campaign contributions traceable w/ very high probability to PRC military intelligence.
* US-built machine tools redirected to (military-related production) sites that they *specifically denied in advance* would be the recipients.
* Mass import of arms, such as illegal shipments of SKS rifles traced to PRC arms companies with very close ties to Beijing.
* Deliberate violations of US nat'l security through leakage of information regarding rocket launches, through Hughes (and, IIRC, maybe Lockheed).
* Theft of nuclear secrets, through suborning of PRC sympathizers with access to classified data.
* Repeated harrassment, threats and refusal to recognize reality regarding Taiwan/ROC.
And... we're trying to be all buddy-buddy to them, partly out of alleged guilt for nailing their Embassy. Frankly, I'd rather bail out our ex-foes based in Moscow, and ostracize Beijing. But no... This is a nation which has repeatedly voiced the threat that it could hit LA with a nuclear-armed ICBM. It is *not* like this Gov't will stand up to them.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Considering that this is happening at the same time as mass arrests, a warrent for the group's leader, and confiscation of literature, it's not too surprising that the party would want the web sites torn down as well.
The Chinese government considers this group to be the biggest threat to it's rule ever.
Their level of paranoia is so high for 3 reasons: 1. the group has 10 million more members than the communist party. 2. Since it is based on traditional Chinese ideas, it cannot denounce it as western contamination. 3. The last two dynasties in China fell shortly after the formation of similar groups.
It doesn't matter if point 3 is superstition or not. The communist party knows that many people will believe that the group's existance means they will soon fall.
Desperation makes people do stupid things.
The US government too should stick to harassing their own citizens.
I read this yesterday on Wired..
Apparently they're trying to syn-flood the two sites; one attack failed, the other didn't..
Guess which site is running Windows?
I'm not an expert on this, but isn't it possible to syn-flood with a spoofed IP address? Just to play devil's advocate, this wouldn't necessarily mean that it's the Chinese doing this, am I right?
Mmmmm....okay, China is a large, homogeneous culture, unlike the West. I'm with you there. And we should try to understand political differences in terms of cultural differences. So far, so good. Where I must disagree with you however, is where you suggest:
Accepting differences is just a matter of acknowledging a reality one could do little about.
and:
While I personally believe that the future belongs to diversity and multicultural cooperation, I also see that the Chinese don't necessarily agree. As long as they stay in their corner and don't mess with any of us, it doesn't have to get ugly.
The problem I have is that you have essentially denied the universality of human rights. We believe that tolerance of others is okay for us, but because the Chinese have a different culture, they don't really have to tolerate differences--in fact, they are totally within their rights to crush these people, or any other domestic group or individual, on a whim.
As soon as we allow that a different cultural background is an an acceptable reason for a government to harass, imprison, torture, and murder its citizens, well, then we basically set sail off into a sea of moral relativism wherein NOTHING is ever really bad or wrong.
Don't get me wrong--we can and should try to understand and appreciate cultural differences. But, there is a difference between understanding something and accepting that thing. We should not accept this notion that somehow human rights are this peculiar thing that can only be enjoyed by westerners.
I don't accept that the Chinese government's actions are somehow okay because they're, y'know, CHINESE. It is enlightening to see how crappy this argument is (it was gospel for my anthro. profs, BTW) when you use the same logic to try to suggest that lynchings by the Klan are really okay, because, after all, they're an inevitable part of the culture of the Southern/Midwestern United States, and that we should all learn to understand, appreciate, and accept them.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Just to play devil's advocate, but I wouldn't put it beyond the chinese authorities to have a go. They could always make the same claim that you did in their defense. Also, what's a Free-Tibet-type attacking a potential destabiliser of China for? In the agent-provocateur role it's stll useless. Oh blah.
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
> You cannot pay for a life.
Tell that to an insurance company.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Well, by trivial, I meant that conceeding them would give China somewhat better relations with first world countries and they're unlikely to suffer greatly because of it.
On Taiwan, I suspect that their reasons for asserting that the island is a part of the PRC (and how Taiwan asserts that China is a part of Taiwan) is mostly a matter of face. IMHO, the Taiwanese are beginning to get a popular democratic government with leaders who don't care, and people who don't care. Thus the recent move to assert Taiwanese sovereignity at the expense of losing their claim to mainland China. Taiwan is doing well enough without China these days anyway. 'Course, Red China's leaders have acted pretty weird in the past, so I don't see why they'd think that policies regarding Taiwan would carry over to Tibet all of the sudden.
Tibet, it seems to me, would have been better handled by using it as a buffer state, much as the Soviet Union did with most of eastern Europe. Defend their borders for them, but maintain that it's an independent country, and let them act independently so long as it doesn't damage the buffer policy. This would not be perfect, obviously, but the Chinese have really mucked up the situation. The money they spend on oppressing the Tibetians (not all of whom are unhappy) could be better spent, from China's POV on a ballistic missile submarine program, making their need for Tibetian launch sites irrelevant and strengthening their military globally.
But boy am I glad that China's navy is as lousy as it is.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The Chinese government estimates that at it's peak, 70 million people practiced Falun Gong, I was using their figures since that's what they will base their reactions on. The Communist party states that they have 60 million members.
Actually, Most Favoured Nation status represents what we might well call "normal trading relations." Essentially, the MFN terminology is from an era of high tariffs, and "free trade" wasn't subscribed to by most governments. Back in the 19th century, most countries imposed tariffs to generate revenue, and any deviation from that policy was reserved for "favoured" nations.
I think there was a bill that would change "Most Favoured Nation" to "normal trade relations" in the official lexicons. I don't know if it passed.
Personally, I'm against free trade, inasmuch as it removes the ability of a country to conduct foriegn policy. If a country wants to close its markets for ideological reasons, it should be able to do so.
Of course, it's also possible that the police were asked not to pursue the case, to minimise political fallout. After the bombing of the Chinese embasy, the LAST thing the US wants right now is for the Chinese to accuse them of sponsoring a revolution.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
but the Davidians shot first and lit thier own damn fire.
The Davidians shot at a group of heavily armed men in paramilitary uniforms with no visable markings who were rushing their compound. If the ATF had simply wanted to enforce law, they could have arrested Koresh on one of the many regular occasions where he was jogging alone outside of the compound. The whole operation could have been handled by a single sheriff's deputy with zero fanfare. Clearly, that's not what they wanted to do.
As for the fire, who knows who started it, we have only the word of the ATF about that.
It's worth mentioning that the chinese government may be similar like ours in that they are not a single organization, but a group of organizations.
What this means is that it may only be a small influential group that is trying to get rid of faul-gong-however-you-spell-it, and not representative of the whole. Just like when the NSA tries to ban crypto - you've got the Commerce Department going "huh?"
Now, having said that; Bad china. Baaaad. ROOM!
--
The poster seems to see no hypocrisy in the actions of his own government, apologies if you are not from the US.
He says that the Chinese government are harassing citizens of other countries. Now I am not sure about you, but I would rather be flooded with ICMP messages than Cluster bombs (Yes they did use them in Serbia as well as Vietnam among others).
The US feels that if they dont agree with an external country's policies, they are free to bomb the country into the ground, see Vietnam, Iraq, Serbia. Now you may feel that Iraq and Serbia are run by governments of questionable nature. But what the hell did Vietnam do to deserve the bombardment that it got ?????
On the other hand the citizens of the US are allegedly protected by all their ammendments. One day a country will respond and the US just *might * rethink their attitude to international relations.
njd
I don't how people like you live in the US. Americans are one of the most patriotic people on the face of the earth!
Am I suggesting that you are not patriotic? YES. you are so clouded by your judgement against the Chinese government that you failed to look at situation rationally and objectively! PEOPLE ARE DYING!!! I can't believe that you are looking at all those crying faces on TV, and telling me that they are all paid actors. Ohh, wait, you probably don't get to see the families of the demented, dying, and the dead. sorry, I forgot about the American media....
Well, there are demented, dying, and dead. Because of certain under-educated, self concocted, mystical believe system, that uses Budhist terminology, but does not follow budhist teachings. Its a mix of religion, meditation, and POLITICS. yes. it is a political organization. I remember once, the head of the organizatino said. "Some people practice Qigong under trees. but I see, that after a few years, the trees are dead from them rolling too much under them. Why must they practice Qigong under trees?? And kill the trees? Go practice some where else...."
The main activity for those people gathered in front of Chinese government office is to "Practice Qigong." the message was that some how that ground was a good place for practicing. But WHY? there are plenty of good places to practice Qigong, why infront of the Chinese government. Don't tell me that the Million men march in washington didn't have a political reason behind it. To claim that they must practice their Qigong infront of Chinese government, and that it was totally pure in intentions, and had no political reasons, and especially in such tumultuous times in China, is simply naive.
Qigong inherently does is not religious. People researched and utilized it for over 5000 years--Usually hidden in mountains, for exactly this reason: Very easily it can bring a "head cutting crime" to its practitioner. To use a Qigong organization, to even remotely promote such a sensitive activity, is just plainly not the way to go from Traditional Chinese Qigong.
Any ways, main point is, it is political. Treat it as a political activity that these people are involved in, and then tell me that you think the government is trying to disalow a political party.... I'm fine with that. Go and bite the government's head off if you want for doing that, and I might even help you chew.
My ~50 father pointed out that this is no different from the Russians using Radio interference to stop Radio Free Europe during the cold war.
Here in Sweden, which was always neutral, they could often not listen to it because of the Russian interference machines...
But people like Janet Reno are trying to make the world more like China.
And you're encouraging it by saying that our token "democracies" are not as bad as China. Of course they're not. Yet. And we don't want to be heading in that direction either.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I'm not sure exactly where you're going with your post.
I avoided going into belief systems in my original post because it is not esential to understanding the reaction of the Chinese governments reaction.
I personally practice Qigong and cultivation techniques, so I certailny won't dismiss it as superstition. I do think that Falun Dafa may be oversimplifying things in places, but there's nothing new about that. I have not seen a doctor in over a decade, and I am in good health.
As for Falun Dafa being fake, I wouldn't be so sure.
People can die from many beliefs, including the belief that western medicine is the final authority on health. The Chinese government (which definatly has an agenda to support) is only able to point to 16 deaths from people failing to seek medical treatment. That is out of 70 million people (by their estimates). Pick any random 70 million people, and I'll bet you will find at least 16 who died of a treatable disease. 16 out of 70 million (or even 1 million) is not statistically significant. Far more than that die in traffic accidents.
As for the whole Koresh incident, they are now dead, but government intervention was for their own good. Keep in mind that Koresh could have been arrested during one of his regular trips into town, or while jogging off the compound (which he did regularly). If arresting him was the REAL motive for the incident, then the Fed. agencies are more stupid than I thought (which is saying a lot!).
A final note: Consider for a moment is 10,000 people walked into Washington D.C., and, without saying a word, sat in a circle around the White House. After sitting there wordlessly for the day, they all get up and walk away. You'd better believe the FBI and the Secret Service would be all over it.
I work for the Asian Broadcasting Union, a coalition of many asian news broadcasters. One included is CCTV, which is the major Chinese broadcaster in China (it also operates under the government). All of a sudden, last week, the Chinese government banned the religious sect of Falun Gong, without much of a reason at all. Ever since then, this whole week, I have seen transmissions of propaganda items depicting ex-Falun Gong members 'giving up their beliefs for the good of China'. This just shows that when the government of China wants something gone, they do their best to have it _Gone_. Also, I doubt this has anything to do with overzealous free-tibet script kiddies, because it's not big news, and from the script kiddies I know, they can't even spell Falun Gong ;)
That is all.
Mmmm, I'm a chinese in New York too. Look Kido, how can you support the banning of anything, especially a non-political "group".
Before I throw in my take, let's discuss some facts.
a) High school education has nothing to do with the guy's talent, you are an igorant elitist.
b) The guy's in NJ is because Beijing forced him to leave. They started to use this policy from a few years ago. And it's MUCH more effective than any other depressing technique they used before. As soon as the fish leave its water, it's going to try out slowly --very slowly, so nobody will notice it. (You know all the men Beijing kicked out is going to end up in the U of A. Most of them can't adapt to the new environment/figting ground very well.) There was the guy * who was jailed for 20 or so years, and he was sent stright to airport from jail. The minute he came out of JFk, he declared that he wanted to join Taiwan majority party, little did he know that the Taiwan political environment has changed drasitically. That Party has gotten rid of most of the principle it stand for five years ago. So he becomed an instant laughingstock (to all the Chinese, which is what counts.) This is exactly what they did to the FalunGong leader.
c) The falun Gong doesn't stand for anything, another reason you and the communist party has no say on banning such a "thing" (It's not an organization) The reason of the chackdown is that it's really a perfect target for shifting the public focus --The economic is not moving well; new bottleneck; There's a real chance that that fuck-face in taiwan is willing to create a crisis to extend his presidency (he has used up all of his two terms.) This is just like 2 years ago's southern China prostitute crackdown, if the heads in Beijing can't agree on some more important thing, they agree on a half time break.
Personally, the retro style "study class" come straigh from the cultural revolution is a laugh riot. As if someone over 14 will take it seriously anymore. And other indication that Jiang ZheMin and co. havn't put a lot of thought on it.
d) You are really lame in implying that you support a offical DoS attact, why don't you just say it's some patriotic script-kiddie who has access to the machine.
CY
*I'll be damn if I remember his name, I'm writing this reply offline.
Quoting the article, "Police spokesman Pete Piringer said that because the attack did not succeed in getting access to McWee's server, there did not seem to be a crime committed."
Someone needs to remind Mr. Piringer, along with the various state legislatures, that other attempted crimes (rape, murder, robbery, burglary, etc), are all quite illegal.
(After all, when was the last time you saw an AP reporter who even knew what a WHOIS lookup was, let alone one who would consider that the concept of "contact information" for domains in a country like China might be completely different from that in the States.)
Don't you think that maybe people who would know how to do this, for instance U.S. Government hackers who might not want to go public, might contact reporters and give them enough info and background to do such checks? I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes we simply don't know.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I'm not a coward, but what the heck, I don't have time to create a new account right now. I just want to say that:
1) I am a Chinese in America;
2) I think China would be better as a democracy;
3) I support bans on Falun Gong.
I've noticed that much of the publicity in America surrounding China's ban on the sect fails to mention the disturbing details about the group:
1. The group was founded just seven years ago by a man with high school education. He now lives in a spacious estate in (I believe) New Jersey.
2. The man claims he needs no medication and suffers no ailments.
3. He claimed Earth is in a volatile state and might explode in 1997 or 98. He now says he can delay the end of world for as long as 30 years.
4. His methods of meditation can lift a practitioner above water. Yet, when his followers surrounded ZhongNanHai (where Chinese leaders live) they failed to surround the fourth side -- a lake.
Those commies always were just a bunch of script kiddies! ;) ;)
I read about this in my local paper. Seems they were syn-flooding several sites, spoofing the IP of the Dept. of Transportation. But why is this so shocking? After all, the U.S. gov't authorized American crackers to go after Milosevich's (sp?) bank accounts.
I think you can figure out how to email me
I think you can figure out how to email me
PGP Key:
Reported on rootshell:
Chinese crackers sentenced to death
12/29/98 2:44PM PDT
Two crackers who stole $31,400 from a bank in eastern China have been sentenced to DEATH.
Reported on Slashdot:
Chinese Government Implicated in DoS on US Site
Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday July 31, @01:28PM EDT
Any questions?
>
> The address McWee said was left behind is registered with the
> Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, a public registry service
> for Internet addressees. According to the service, there are two
> phone numbers in Beijing listed with that address.
>
> When The Associated Press called the numbers, a person who
> answered the phone identified them as belonging to the Public
> Security Ministry. A telephone operator at the ministry said they
> belonged to its Internet Monitoring Bureau.
Silly question for y'all... as much as I'd like to believe that the Chinese Government is involved in DOSing "subversive" sites around the world, I remember reading something to the effect that all IP connectivity from China to the rest of the world goes through some sort of monitoring/firewall/gateway thingy.
If, for WWW access, this takes the form of some sort of proxy, perhaps it's only natural that the IP addresses of Chinese surfers appear to all be coming from a netblock controlled by the "Internet Monitoring Bureau"? Maybe it's the Chinese Government, maybe it's a Chinese script kiddie.
Maybe the Internet Monitoring Bureau, as they presumably have control over what domains get registered, happens to be the default telephone contact for domains in .cn, whether or not all traffic goes through a proxy server.
Does anyone have any hard information on how "Internet access" works in China?
My gut says it's still the Chinese government. But my brain's telling me not to jump to conclusions, especially when the most sensational "evidence" is based a phone call from an Associated Press reporter from a WHOIS lookup on APNIC.
(After all, when was the last time you saw an AP reporter who even knew what a WHOIS lookup was, let alone one who would consider that the concept of "contact information" for domains in a country like China might be completely different from that in the States.)
So - like I said - anyone know how IP connectivity in China really works and that this isn't just a red herring?