Slashdot Mirror
China Plots Cyberspace War Strategy
gaijin|dog writes "According to this article in the Washington Times, China has said that Internet warfare should be equated to combat operations for air, land and sea forces. Communications, transportation, finance, electrical power networks and other critical services in the US are listed as likely targets. Kinda scary considering the resources China could use against us." My personal opinion: this article is a dizzy mix of fact and scare-mongering. But you ought to read it for yourself and make up your own mind how valid it is.
What's really neat is that it shows the importance of the Internet- not that anyone who reads Slashdot questions the role of the Internet in business, government, and personal use- but it's neat to see that controlling the Internet and an enemies computer networks as viewed as important as controlling an enemies land, sea, and airspace.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
This article (supposedly appearing in a "Chinese military newspaper"?) seems to be little more than a combination of wishful thinking and posing for the purpose of intimidating rivals to power.
It's reminiscent of Microsoft's vaporware tactics in its various "wars" with real or potential competitors (in some respects--obviously, it's not a perfect analogy).
MCSEs are the stunted children of an overbearing parent; they should be pitied, not hated.
The UN/Geneva conventions have set out rules for things like biological warfare, and nuclear weapons. Why don't we get off our duffs and do something about cyber warfare? The US has admitted to using cyber warefare as a means to an end during the Yugaslavia conflict. I'm sure China will also do so if it feels threatened.
The problem is that some people might not notice that, yes, there is a problem with it. It's not "clean" warfare -- what if your mission critical computer that is 'net connected goes down? This same system could be responsible for life support for hospital patients, or perhaps tracking the course of some satalites (the Shuttle doesn't stand up to well to colissions).
Can we really take the risk of letting people distrupt, either directly or indirectly, the infrastructure that a lot of people rely on? Something that could lead to deaths?
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
by the US news media. Any objections?
Give a million people a computer, and pay them to find new ways to use them to kill.
Is this why linux is the OS of the PRC?
~snort~snuffle~root~
Wow - this is fairly scary. Anyone know if the US has anything like this? On a sidenote, I read a while ago in Newsweek that the US was planning to break in to Slobodan Milosevic's bank accounts and take his money (or something), so I guess we at least have something in mind...
JMC
This is an interesting followup to the recent discussion about Linux being the "official" OS of China. I wonder how Linus would feel about his little project being used in a war against him?
I wonder if there's a flock of writters in the basement of MS HQ writting all this stuff.
What would Al Gore(cyber-candidate) say ?
- sigs are for wimps.
At first glance, this just sounds like an attempt by the People's Liberation Army to appease upper Party hacks demanding such capabilities... bandwagoning by a military superpower is still bandwagoning nonetheless.
:wq
If the government starts doing this sorta thing in a war-type situation, then wouldn't that make it pretty much open season on most any system in that country for practically anyone in the other country? I mean, say our gov't starts messing with Chinese systems. Are any actions going to be taken against freelance attackers as well? It seems they wouldn't. While the idea kinda sucks, it might be a good opportunity for all the wannabe(Cr)(H)ackers to practice up, or learn some stuff. btw, while not completely serious, I do think this is an interesting idea.
The real point of this article is that China is trying to make itself powerful in any way it can. America is currently very vulnerable to electronic attack. So vulnerable that if an attack were mounted, we might not know how to react.
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we knew immediately what to do. It meant war. If China were to take down one of the Pentagon's networks for a few days, what would we do about it? The confusion it would generate is far more scary than even a clearly defined first strike. When people are confused, they make mistakes. Between China and the US, the mistakes could get big.
But enough talk about apocalypse... For now it is mostly just blustering. I think the best thing that could come out of this is that the US and other contries might develop electronic warfare departments of their own. If it hasn't happened already, I hope the US has plans in place detailing what we will do if we are attacked over the Net. I know we already have some sort of an electronic warfare division, but I'm sure the bulk of it is classified.
Do you think we'll see an official US govt. response to this newly publicised threat?
What is the current population of China at the moment ?? Well, if Linux is the *official* operating system, and add a little communism - does this not add up to the biggest Beowulf cluster of all time !!!!!!!!!!!!
Isn't this how all those sci-fi books start out in which computers eventually take over the world? We begin creating technology that will eventually destroy us because of war, and this declaration could be just that. I think a few shooter games start like taht too. Hey, a lot of sci fi authors have guessed right about the future... what if this is one of those things? *shudder*
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am.
"Modern high-tech warfare cannot win without the Net"
The above is a quote from the article and is, IMO, complete rubbish. I am not saying that internet warfare would not be an effective means of disrupting the functioning of a large, technlogised country. But to state that a war could not be won without using the Net is garbage.
One squadron of B2 stealth bombers could completely obliterate most small countries before their populace new they were there. How the hell does this kind of aggresive, decisive action involve the internet?
Another example is the air war fought against Iraq in 1990. That operation could be repeated again, with even greater success, tomorrow. In exactly the same fashion. Hell, the bombing raids could probably use the same flight patterns. Denial of service would be far easier to achieve using a physical attack. Why not just airburst a small nuke over Wall Street? EMP is far more effective, more direct, then DoS attacks over the internet.
By all means, hack government and community systems to cause confusion, unrest and inconvenience. But the effective use of electronic warfare has virtually nothing to do with the Internet.
Cya,
Gomez
1a: Go out there on that battlefield, and kill as many people as you can. (NOTE: Killing is illegal, but in times of war, Go for it.)
1b: Go out there on that network, and kill as many workstations as you can. (NOTE: System Cracking is illegal, but *apparently* in times of war, encouraged.)
Pretty interesting when considered.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
[not to be confused woth the US Chess Federation]. The Air Force started as an extention of the Army in the early 20th century. Later it becais the USAAF (US Army Air Force). Then finally the Air Force separated into it's own division. And now following the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force might this be the beginnings of a the 5th branch of the Milirary? The Cyber Force? Of course, we'll need the Cyber Reserves. And ad campaigns. "Join the cyber reserves. It's just 2 weeks of hacking a year, and one weekend a month, and in return, you can go to college prepaid!" We'll need Cyber Force boot camp too. "OK, you script kiddie maggots! Your first training task will be to try and crash the secured fileservers in that building over there! You will each be provided with a laptop and a modem. You will use your training and the skills you were provided with to bring down the enemy. If you lose your laptop, or crash your hard drive, you will not be able to return home!" etc. We'll have cyber force drafts, draft dodgers, anti-cyber force protestors. It'll be great. Congress will allocate billions for the Cyber Force. Electronic weapons development, EMP cannons the likes of which have never been seen. Virus development. And the geeks will profit big time. I'll be first in line.
will be the spammers ..... :-)
Should the American Public be afraid of cyber warfare? I think not. After all, why would a foriegn country attack the average joe.
-PovRayMan
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Check out my blackbox styles
We haven't learned a thing. Chinese cyber assualts will be answered with NATO ICBMs. I predict a full scale nuclear exchange within two decades. Too bad, I really liked this place and all you nice people.
I wonder what kinda boot camp a Net Force would put you through? "LISTEN HERE PRIVATE YOU NEED TO TYPE FASTER, DON"T STOP UNTIL YOUR FINGERS ARE BLEEDING". Or perhaps a course or two on KILLING WITH BIG UNIX MANUAL 101. snoogens
The Washington Times is not known as a particularly reliable newspaper. It's owned and operated by the Unification Church -- better known as the Moonies -- and runs to the extreme right wing quite a bit of the time.
If something is reported in the Washington Times and not picked up by the Post or the New York Times, you can bet that it's the Moonies getting it wrong yet again.
Nerve and chemical agents are deployed by every major amry in the world. The US and Russian armies are the leading developers of biological agents.
These substances defy control - once unleashed they could destroy human life.
We seem so intent on destroying ourselves. Maybe we should just get it over with so the few remaining humans can abosrb the lessons.
Can we really take the "Liberation Army Daily" seriously as a publication when their journalistic integrity has been called into question on so many occasions?
I mean who can forget the time when they ran the story about the red army sargeant deep undercover as a slightly plump Ms. Lewinsky? What about their coverage of the Tonya Harding affair? Can you say biased?
I think its time we realized that "KGB Today" is probably the only unbiased, reliable news source left in the world.
Hotnutz.com
Regardless of the specific strategies or methodologies (or of the authenticity of the article in question); it shouldn't surprise anyone that China, or any other significant power, is working on "cyberwarfare". Surely there is no question that the U.S. is too, and are probably ahead of anyone else. Regardless of what the public is told, fairness & treaties are like Santa Claus where war is concerned. (That's right kids, Mom & I have something that we want to tell you).
One of the signs that a story has been "placed" by a PR firm is when the story gives extensive attention to a single source--who coincidentally has just published a book on the subject. That seems to be the case here--William Triplett is identified as the author of a new book, Red Dragon Rising .
One of the threats that Triplett explicitly raises is that the Chinese might be able to use Internet warfare to raise havoc in petroleum refineries--causing fires, spills, etc. He emphasizes that oil refineries are generally located close together, as though this represents some kind of danger.
That reminded me of something--I've already read this book, only it was a novel. Back in 1986 Tom Clancy and Larry Bond wrote a thriller entitled Red Storm Rising (Clancy, Red Storm Rising, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1986). The story begins with an attack by Muslim terrorists on a massive petroleum refinery in central Russia. One of the terrorists uses computer commands to wreak havoc--causing spills, igniting fires, and causing mass destruction. The fires destroy a major portion of the Soviet Union's petroleum industry, because all the refineries are located so close together.
Whether, and how, the U.S. might respond to a concerted Internet attack is an interesting question. But I wonder if this guy represents a credible source....
heh,
.sig
i was in model un this weekend and I(IRAN) was getting bashed by Russia and the U.S. over our possession of chemical weapons. So we handed out maps of all 30 of Russia's known chemical weapons facilities, they weren't very happy. We also cited several times when they used them irresponsibly.
matisse:~$ cat
It's interesting that China's interest in such activities (if real or invented hype) is portrayed as something bad, evil and dangerous to America.
I am sure that the US has its own info-war corps at training right now and they will use the very same methods for the sake of western civilization.
Funny that other nations' troops are always the evil guys, despite using the same actions, tactics and weapons during war.
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You may like my a cappella music
I can't believe no one has mentioned the most terrifying part yet. Now, most military installations are required to use Windows. My father is in the Army and is head of network maintance (or whatever they call it this week) at a large army base in NC. He was ordered about a year ago to replace all of the secure Novell servers (secure, because they don't even support TCP/IP! can't beat security through inability) and replace them with Windows NT. Their network is already script kiddie heaven. Between bugs in Windows, insecure modems, and easy to guess PC Anywhere passwords, they're an easy target for my 15 year old friends. I wonder what a Chinese professional could do against their network? It scares me that Generals in the Army would sign orders requiring the use of known insecure systems. Are they as cavalier about their attitude with rifles and artillery?
First they announce Linux as the official OS for china, then they lay out war plans for attacking the US. If the use of Microsoft products continues as is we could be in real trouble.
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
I suppose that before long GraphOn (or perhaps AntiOnline) will announce that statd will be the official exploit of the Chinese cyberwar effort?
It's hard enough to find a chinese guy who can make a good egg roll. I doubt those knuckleheads can make good on this threat.
It is very likely that China, Russia and the US have had these capabilities since 1994. Since War is very serious business, usualy without the constraints familiar to civilian population. Now the fact that this article is published in the Washigton Time(washtimes.com/news/news3.html) make me wonder if this is propaganda. Maybe with the intent of obtaining public support to rearm the Army, Navy and Inteligence communities would not be a suprise. They are craving for more money. Or it might be the continuation of the propaganda of the previous Cold War. Interesting times!
The internet is -constantly- under attack. Or, the other way of looking at it, is that the internet is a great big training-grounds for cyberwarfare. We have our defense specialists (sysadmins, netadmins, and the OpenBSD project... :)) constantly engaging in 'wargames' with our 'black ops' teams (the (cr|h)acker 'community').
...
When black 'hits' they (usually) only mark their 'kill' with a label.
Now, given that at least a good quarter-to-a-third of the (cr|h)ackers (and usually the better ones, at that) are politically motivated, I think it's a pretty good bet that they'd lash out hard against any nation that began waging cyberwarfare against civilians. (The response would be more mixed for military-target-only, of course, and both sides might gain unofficial 'cyberwarriors' in many situations.)
Final notes -
Any refinery, factory, etc, that has their real
world device controls accessible to the internet should be immediately be dissolved on the basis of congenital idiocy and criminal negligence leading to the endangerment of lots of lives.
'Cyberwar' is a really stupid term. Some one come up with a better one, -please-. 'Information war' sounds more like propaganda-warfare. 'Internet war' probably won't catch on. Don't even -think- 'e-war' or 'iWar'
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
If you are designing a system which has serious consequences of failure (e.g. hospital monitors, flight or air traffic control, power grid, etc), you have to be careful. Perhaps even paranoid.
Putting such a system on the Internet is simply irresponsible, especially where lives are at stake. The military knows this pretty well. The civilian sector... well, I would hope they understand this too. But it wouldn't surprise me to see some problem areas.
Best regards,
SEAL
--
Ok, so China attacks our internet. We pull the plug of all the routers leading outside the country, wipe all effected systems and restore from backup.
Just doesn't have the same ring as 100's of people being killed by a bomb.
Q.
nothing. Oh I am sorry I forgot we are dismantling the military in favor of feeding the losers on welfare who are too lazy to work.
disinformation to me. Let's see.... wasn't there a story about Linux becoming China's "official" OS not too long ago?
Linux == Commie OS.
China == Cyber-threat
ergo...
Linux is a communist weapon to destroy the Free World (tm)
I don't know if I should write a letter to the editor
or do more bongs...
Older, properly designed plants, have completely separated internal networks from the internet.
However, newer plants are tending to use Microsoft systems in some of their servers (scary enough), and also normally have internet firewalls. Internal computers (Even in the control room) have both software to control the plant as well as to access the internet.
Firewalls can't stop everything.
Booooring. I'm sure that the intelligence agency that published this would love to spearhead the effort to combat this new red peril. Just a cheap ploy by our friends in the intelligence agency. Not to say that this isn't a serious threat, I just am awfully suspicious of this. Will we hear about the "hacker gap" soon and other such tripe?
Of course, this could just be random hype, and nothing will come of it. If any 3leet kids out there start getting calls from the men in the white hats, I hear they don't pay too well.
"Where do you get off thinking any OS is superior to DOS?"
People who are mean, suck. The opposite is not true.
Very simple, the entirety of China flood pings a rather important backbone in the U.S. Or the other direction, of course hehehe.
Anything is possible at this point. I just find it kinda amusing that people will believe whatever is speculated.
Trust me, if ANY nation out there felt that it wanted to take a shot at the US strongly enough, it would have, and you would have seen the aftermath by now.
These wars you speak of are more psychological than anything else.
It is a game of equals meeting a constant stand-off.
It is good to think of the worst possible scenario, but not to dredge up enough paranoia to actually play it out.
I wonder sometimes if the media effect is a human nature trait and not a particular "jerk" gene.
First, I suspect the accuracy of anything that appears in the Washington Times. Its owners, the Unification Church, are from the Old School of Red baiters. Then again, the Korean War may have had something to do with this.
But, in reading the paraphrasis of the Chinese article, particularly the reference to "gaining control" of "Internet command", I get the feeling that they don't quite understand the decentralized nature of the Internet.
What can they do? Get root on the root nameservers?
Rand has some interesting studies in this field.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Horror of horrors, those nasty reds are planning on new forms of military attacks that could potentially result in people dying ! Why can't they just stick to nice honorable methods of warfare, like bombs, machine-guns and bayonets?
Imagine those bombers that flew over Iraq. Now imagine how completely screwed up their orders could have been if Sadam could have hacked the U.Ss C&C infrastrure *or* if the pilots weren't sure their orders were "correct". In the former, you could have bombers dropping bombs on their own side. In the latter, you've got ever set of orders being questioned as to it's authenticity, and slowing everthing down.
Do you really think that you can just "hack" the U.S. Command and Control structure? First of all, the U.S. military, amongst others, focuses on compartmentalizing. Certainly it is a hierarchy, but each subunit knows its job and what to do if isolated.
But more importantly, they don't rely on the Internet for their wartime critical communications. Would you? I mean, sure, you can wreak some havoc on a carrier battle group with an EMP, but that crosses into the realm of a physical attack. Same thing with destroying a key satellite. Carrying out a 100% information based attack usually requires infiltration or compromised security in some form. Simply having access to the Internet won't cut it.
Best regards,
SEAL
This article serves a few functions:
1.
To make sure the average citizen is anti-chinese, or to make sure Americans stay patriotic. The whole nuclear secrets scandal was shown to basically be a scam, this is similar territory, at least in it's purpose.
2.
To maintain legitimacy for our military and to increase support for military funding. Notice how the article mentioned something like 39 million dollars being allocated to "protect computers".
This stuff tends to work on a society that is short on facts and long on tabloid bullshit. Lets face it, there are VERY few people who know anything on this topic, including those in high level government positions. Since most people take the media to be the accepted version of truth, they buy it. Of course people don't trust the media nearly as much as they used to, but this is still true for the most part.
Any country that wants to be a player in the next century *should* be developing this type of technology. Who doubts that the US is way ahead of the Chinese in this technology anyway? The US gets all whipped up anytime some country even hints that they might be increasing their military in some fashion, even though we easily have the most powerful arsenal on the planet.
This is just another piece of extreme right-wing xenophobic rhetoric.
China is evil??? Really? A country that crushes its own unarmed student demonstrators? A government that imprisons its own pensioners on which whos backs it built itself when they want someone to help with their grievances? People's Republic of China - not so? Nah... They couldn't POSSIBLY be evil...
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
New topic: "China" or "New ways to bash Chinese". It seems the /. maintainers and moderators like the topic. By the way, why not start this so called CyberWar on /. Release all that biased non-sense.
THIS ARTICLE AND NEWS POST IS RIDICULOUS! WHAT A WASTE OF BANDWIDTH! I WILL ALSO WASTE BANDWIDTH. BEGINNING 11/24/99 YOU SHALL BEAR WITNESS TO THE END OF DAYS! ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER STARS IN "END OF DAYS" AN EXCITING FILM THAT CHRONICLES THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM. WILL SMITH'S NEW ALBUM, "WILLENNIUM" IS AVAILABLE IN STORES NOW, SO GO OUT AND GET YOURSELF A COPY! WHAT IF ALL THE HYPE ABOUT Y2K IS TRUE? WITNESS YOUR WORST FEARS WHEN "Y2K: THE MOVIE" PREMIERES ON NBC THIS SUNDAY.
Well, the Chineese have already been doing the dumb stuff. There is some meditation technique that they don't like, and they have been defacing the websites DoS'ing the servers that host the content, etc... both here and in Canada. Sorry if I'm fuzzy on the details, but I really don't feel like looking them up.
Can't really blame them. The Russians were brought down by Pepsi-Cola, cheap blue jeans, fast food, and rock-and-roll. If I was running a totalitarian government, I'd keep such a tight lock on information that I'd make sure that only my brain-washed cronies could speak any language other than ubby-dubby. As is stated in "Children of the Revolution", "McDonald's in Red Square! It's the Communist Apocalypse!"
Information warfare is a part of every government plan, and will be as long as there are people and governments and information. And I'm all for it. My theory is this: It's war. You want to kill me and mine, and I want to stop you. I will do whatever it takes.
~Jason Maggard
"When I remain formless, I force my opponent to defend an attack that he cannot understand."
~Sun Tzu
didn't they buy that special cracking program from a Chinese operative?
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This article sounds like phear mongering to me. Like this...
The cyber-attacks followed the May 7 bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade and were viewed by some U.S. national security officials as possible government-sponsored information-warfare attacks on the United States.
You're an American student who happens to know how to crack computers. In an unrelated (to you) Chinese conflict, they bomb a U.S. embassy and kill a number of American citizens. What do you do that night?
Information warfare is a natural step into the Information Age. Don't be scared, just be cautious. If you want to look for an Information Age Pearl Harbor or equivalent war-starting (building) atrocity think about a really nasty Melissa/Bubbleboy/BO2K coupled with a million dedicated (and crafty) young men working from the comfort of their homes behind the Great Firewall.
Just some initial thoughts on what will be an interesting topic to follow. I'd REALLY like to hear from some Chinese geeks.
+&x
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An entire military department devoted to smurf attacks. Neato.
i think some smart ppl in china realiced who volunarable the west is with windoze on almost every desktop.. as a consequence they invested in cyberwarefare while they switch to something more secureable: linux. they hired a few hacker and one of them (as a proof of concept) wrote the macrovirus that sent that emails to china.. makes perfect sense. and if it helps people here to realize how deep they are in the shit by using windoze then it is only good...
dermond.
True story: dropping oversize condoms onto enemy troops to demoralize them. The US actually did this during vietnam.
Oooh, you have such very large penises. We bow before your gargantuan members. Surely men with such large penises have nothing to fear from us. Our penises are soo small.
(that show is too funny, ROTFL every Wed @ 11(M))
+&x
The fact that the Washington Times is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church (the Moonies) and radical right-wing anti-communist, leaves me suspicous about the story. The Times has been a supporter of SDI (Star Wars), higher military spending, and quick to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon. The author of the article, Bill Gertz, has written a book called Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security which is basically a diatribe on how America (and Bill Clinton in particular) has sold out to the Chinese and the Russians allowing them to create newer weapons of mass destruction and cripple the US military at the same time. The amazon.com site alone speaks volumes about how this writer's views.
The article itself raves of an oncoming the war with the Evil Communist Chinese Empire creating an anti-capitalism internet branch to their military. Yeah, the same government who has been begging and pleading to be able to do trade with the rest of the world is going to destroy the Internet, right before they invade the US ("Go Wolverines!"). I especially like the touch of the unnamed "senior Pentagon official" being informed, but not actually having an opinion on the subject. And then there is the expert, William Triplett, and his rabid anti-China book Red Dragon Rising who spouts off that those crafty Chinese will one day the US oil refineries though the Internet. Yesh. I like it better when Sandra Bullock was fighting evil in The Net. Rampant xenophobia rears it's ugly head.
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
I have a hard time choking that FUD down.
.mil domains? How many "dangerous teeange hackers" gained access by exploiting age old exploits? I'm not in any way condoning such acts, personally, I'd leave the .mil computers alone, but let's face it, we are not looking at an electronic Pearl Harbor. And, how many of you want to bet that pretty soon we are going to see someone cry to Congress complaining about "the evil nations trying to crack our computer networks?"
First of all, our military has a tendency to over-exagerate things. How many "sophisicated, coordinated attacks" turns out to be script kiddies running NMAP randomly on
The general public, as a rule of thumb, is pretty ignorant. And ignorant people are always afraid of the unknown. That's what FUD's made of. Case in point:
Communists + Nuclear "Secrets"
Communists + Cyber attacks.
Issues like these are meant to generate anti-Chinese sentiments. "Chinese students at American universities might be trained for cyber attacks?" Unless the author can back that up, that's slander to a lot of students.
Secondly, who is to say that the US doesn't have infowar capabilities? At DefCon in Las Vegas, there was a talk given about EMP bombs - developed by the Army. Military commanders know how the game is played. You develop a weapon, someone else develop a similar weapon as a counter. And, in most cases, the spread of these weapons, in the hands of rational heads of States, allows us to have checks and balances in place. Chinese government officials aren't dumb, they know that if they launched an unprovoked attack they can be sure to face retalliations.
Just my 2 cents.
-=- SiKnight
Fuckers I win you lose FUCKERS
Congrats.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
it's good that it's open source, so people can fight back using the same damn stuff -- and it won't crash either!
willis.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
Hmm. The internet being a free society and all, I'd imagine that open cyberwar would be met in the simplest way: internet blockade. All the pipes just ignore anything from whoever is attacking. Then the only way a country could attack would be to physically get into another country and launch from there...which would be an act of cyberwar against that second country too.
Of course, that's just the condescending slap-on-the-wrist version. More likely it'd start raining bombs over the attacking country. There is not one country on Earth that would sit back and let another country directly damage its infrastructure; that's almost as infuriating as a physical invasion, doing damage on the country's own home soil. It's as much of a commitment to hostilities as a real invasion, too; no political propaganda would save the aggresor from being universally condemned by the rest of the world.
So this is about as dangerous as nuclear weapons. Incredibly dangerous, and yet everyone will be afraid to fire first, because the response volley will be fatal.
-evilWurst
Harming systems connected to the Internet is so easy that we cannot rely upon Internet-reliant systems to manage our most critical functions - national power grid, air traffic control, the fed, etc. (you all saw Sneakers?)
Commercial business can be trashed pretty quickly over the Net, but government is something else.
We gonna lose man. bad. heh.
Sorry clicked wrong on the first one...
Your arguments are scattershot and separate. They don't apply to the same thing.
a) Chechnya. China's major advantage over the U.S. in Chechnya (should either of them become involved) is the fact that the U.S. isn't connected via land. This makes it extremely difficult to deploy ground troops to the area. Remember the mobilization to liberate Kuwait? Half a million men or so... and it took awhile. China could make that action look tiny with their proximity to Chechnya. U.S. Air operations would also be restricted due to the lack of nearby airbases.
b) China's shoreline. Once again, launching an attack on ANY overseas target is much more difficult than defending your homeland. Launching an invasion (read: amphibious assault) is even more difficult. The U.S. is arguably the only nation in the world equipped and trained for this. Yet they won't even consider it without prior established air-superiority.
c) You left out China's navy, which is seriously lacking. If I was assigned to attack China, you can bet I'd take advantage of this. Flatten that air defense with sub-launched cruise missiles, and take out strategic ports and bases. I'm not saying I'd succeed, but that would be a weak point to start with. China operates a few attack subs but they would be insignificant. The U.S. undeniably operates the strongest Navy in the world at the present time.
China WOULD LIKE to increase its influence in the world (what nation wouldn't?). But at this point, they really do NOT stack up against Russia and the U.S. with regard to long-distance military operations.
With a next-door neighbor, though, they could just send a massive wave of troops in for target practice. That's China's strength.
Finally, to call the U.S. corrupt is really a relative thing. In comparison to other large nations, I'd say the U.S. is about par for the course. Every such nation has its own agenda, with points both good and bad.
The main paper is "The People's Daily" (renmin ribao). It may be full of bs sometimes, but it is politically correct news. Usually contains some rant about hegemony or something somewhere.
The next level down are city level papers like "Beijing Daily" and "Chongqing Daily". These are less under central control, and more likely to report things a little more accurately or with less propoganda and moralizing.
The third level are special interest newspapers like "Shipping News" or "The People's Liberation Army Daily" or perhaps old part relics like "Information Reference" (xiaoxi cankao, this is more reliable, but more propaganda-ish) . These are the least reliable (in my opinion). Since they have less prestige and relics of the past, they put out more radical stuff to sell papers...
Also, sometimes the papers a little more distant from the People's Daily are used as test beds for new ideas or to create hype... The "Ming Pao" paper in Hong Kong did this during the summer, with lots of talk about invading Taiwan.
I'm assuming this article is not to make foreigners scared (this newspaper is directed to internal readers) and instead just to move papers. The military is big stuff in China -- much more obvious than in the US. Lots of people read "military news" or like "Military Affairs" (junshi)
the People's Liberation Army Daily site (down? probably in gb-chinese as well)
a Beijing Scene article on the recent war fever in China (Beijing Scene is a popular expat weekly in Beijing)
Also, quite seriously, who in their right mind wouldn't be thinking about this type of stuff in this day and age. I mean... like other
Sometimes I get the feeling that people just like to pick on China -- or feel some sort of psychic need to let it fill the spot left by the USSR's collapse. They've drawn a shitty lot (the Chinese), at try thinking from their perspective every once in a while.
maybe I've been here too long.
willis.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
"William Triplett, co-author of a new book on the PLA, said the Liberation Army Daily article appears to be the first time Beijing officially acknowledged having offensive computer-warfare capabilities."
I don't know about that, but I've seen lots of newspaper articles talking about hacking, and specifically the Chinese hacker response to the NATO bombing of their embassy on 8.5.99. I don't recall the exact text of all of those articles, but it always seemed like they thought it was pretty important, even if they never said anything about capabilities.
"All of this offensive-warfare talk, when China is not threatened by anyone, shows that the dragon is at the point where it doesn't have to hide its claws," Mr. Triplett said.
Their is a general Chinese tendancy to be the most hawkish when things at the center are the most weak.
(i.e. right after liberation they got into the Korean War, during the cultural revolution they had border skirmishes with Russia, during the transition from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang zemin they raised a huge ruckus about taiwan (ending with the 7th(?) fleet parking itself in the Taiwan Straits in 96), and recently this beef with Taiwan is happening during a weak moment for them internally (falungong, economy problems, corruption)).
It seems that when the "dragon" is the weakest, so to speak, it choses not to "hide its claws" the most. During the Cultural Revolution (a very weak point) people were always talking about the need to "beat down American Imperialism" (dadao meidi) -- they couldn't do anything back then.
so there. Yeah.
willis
there is no thing
what else could you want?
The US has already "bragged" about doing cyberspace warfare, during the yougoslavia campaign. And the Chinese, don't have anything to throw at anyone, on the internet. However, after becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, they can count on that more and more of their own intranet, that has been hidden from the world will be open to US, British and other countries. That already have an established reputation, as terrorists in this field. The Echolon project comes to mind, for one. They're probably more concerned about this fact, than anything they know they can't do... except in the dreamland of paranoid americans... that think they're seing dangerous greenozoids from marz all day long.
Fact is, China has never instigated hostilities with anyone in the entire 6000 years of its history that was not Chinese, or thought of as Chinese by China (here I'm thinking of Vietnam and Tibet).
All of these attempts to make China out to be a threat to Our Way Of Life are not only paranoid, they are completely asinine. China only cares about China. It concerns itself with the rest of the world only when the rest of the world gets in its hair.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Any good websites about linux/Chinese software ?
Cheers,
China is underestimated, but to say that an attack on the internet is going to cripple the US military is simply foolish. You could fry every backbone on the internet, and the US military would keep on ticking. Even our commercial economy would remain relatively unimpeded (at the current time atleast); the internet represents a relatively small portion of our GDP. Our military industrial capacity is still huge--which is what really determines war (baring nukes); However, something along the lines of an EMP (e.g.: wipe out phone networks, switching stations, etc) is an entirely different story, and has the potential to mess us (or anyone) up badly. Even if all US military hardware is shielded, a complete failure in civilian electronics would cripple our ability to move troops, produce machinery, etc--in short it would be an excellent "first strike"...but an internet attack is nothing close to that.
Anyways, despite China's immense military power and their propensity to trample on their citizen's rights, I don't believe they have any interest in going to war with us. Worst Case: Mutually Assured Destriction, the end. Best Case: Conventional arms war (which strikes me as implausible)--the US has an edge in many ways. Namely, our industrial capacity is significantly larger (e.g.: the ability to turn out more tanks, planes, trucks, bombs, artillery, faster). It would be an ugly war no matter what; not in anyone's best interest. China is probably going to be the world's next great super power (besides the US) if things keep on going the way the way they have been. Why would their stable leadership want to do anything so brash?
(Subtitle: Kinda like getting hit in the groin with a baseball bat from behind)
- ----------------
By focusing on the electronic warfare concept frequently brought up these days, China shows one of the USA's main weaknesses: we are slow. There recently was an article in Newsweek about military reaction time and the difficulties of deploying the army. It also showed figures that the total weight of an army division has rose over the last ten year to a frightening amount (Some of the article can be found here, although the graphic in which the figures were is not on this link). This has always been a difficulty for armies and such problems have allowed terrorism and guerilla tactics to become quite successful against a conventional army. This worked for the Colonists in the Revolutionary War, it worked for the Boers in the Anglo-Boer War, it worked countleass times. Again and again, the supposed underdog was successful because it forced the enemy to keep on its toes until they slipped and fell over. This concept of electronic warfare (the media's fabled "electronic battlefield") draws from the same idea. By simply disrupting the enemy they can cause massive damage and draw attention away from a conventional attack.
Not to mention China gets in the news as a superpower looking for the future, the government can all lobby for an anti-electronic warfare study, and I can sit at home and code code code...
-----------------------------------------------
Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey...
www.stampede.org
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Everybody's got something to hi
Ummm, I hate to tell you all this, but unless Microshaft completes its plans of world domination, I would really like to see China pull that off. Remember, the Internet (then the ARPANET) was designed to operate during a war without failing. So far, it's still essentially as attack-resistant, except that now it's mainly a civilian playground.
The Internet was designed especially not to have a central command point for just this reason: so that enemies cannot attack or subvert it.
My conclusion is that either the Washington Times is grossly unreliable, or China's idea of information warfare is totally harmless. Worry not, fellow Slashdotters. Stupidity is safety, when it's your enemy that's stupid.
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
One question: What do you think people said of Germany before WWI? You're making a very general statement about >1billion people over an extended period of time, extremely foolish. Furthermore, your view of the US is highly distorted. Get Real.
Yours Truly,
FallLine (with 2 feet firmly planted on the ground)
Fellow /.'ers... Say what you want, as a Yank I believe in free speech, but I must say that I find it a little disturbing that this Anti-Americanism is so frequent lately on /. I can take some criticism of my country, but this has turned into a "let's bash the U.S. at every turn" free-for-all. Whenever ANY topic comes up, there are always a few sour little socialist jerks (that's socialists who are jerks, NOT all socialists are jerks) who feel that they have to start spouting off about the evils of America. Well, our precious Internet wouldn't exist if not for America or more precisely the DOD (remember ARPANET?)... The NAZIS or the Soviet Ruskies would still be in charge, and Europe would be a nuked out crater between them. Now I'm not saying that my country, the greatest country on Earth IMNSHO, hasn't done some horrible things, but so have many other nations. I don't see the same people here going off on the evils of Muslim Fundamentalism, or going off on the Chinese for doing what they have done in Tibet, or the British for beating up on poor lowly Argentina (oops, we helped them in that), or the Cubans for Angola, or the Soviets for Afghanistan, or the French for nuclear testing in the So. Pacific, etc... Puleeze... Hypocrites.
...and YES, I'm a Capitalist Pig who loves LINUX and Open Source and think its the best thing since sliced bread.
There are ALOT of fellow geeks here in the US who are anti violence and anti war, when being ANTI war matters. Remember, some wars are just, like the one against the Nazi pigs, or against Sadam (yeah, I know we helped create him, but if we didn't someone else would have and we'd still have had to fight him anyway...)
WHY can't we all just get along???
C'mon guys, it's getting old and boring already...
As far as info warfare goes, any of you who think that Uncle Sam doesn't have a few battalions of armored geeks somewhere in a hollowed out mountain planning the same thing the Chinese are planning, is nuts. I don't how true it is, but I read somewhere that the U.S. Space Command uses some kind of "hardened" and customized UNIX on systems that are physically hardened against particle/energy burst attacks. Also, the US Govt. routinely uses Cyber Warfare techniques against Colombian druglords, taking money out of their bank accounts. I saw this special on The Learning Channel or Discovery about it. They have this dude in a house with aluminum foil all around his windows of his computer room to protect against something (either energy attacks or to keep his stuff from being electronically eavesdropped- I'm sure some of YOU know..) - and he is one of the guys attacking the druglord accounts. Pretty cool stuff, IMO.
==============================
Windows NT has crashed,
I am the Blue Screen of Death,
We need rules.
Better start at the beginning, then. What is Cyberterrorism? Has it even been properly defined? Signal 11 humorly points out that even a "Bad hair day" could be guised as Cyberterrorism.
I have a another question... How many institutions have separate internal and external (internet accessable) networks? I don't know of many bank ATMs that run Netscape. You want security? Don't plug it in. You want Internet? Buy yourself a WebTV. Just because we CAN make ourselves "dependant" on the Internet, it does not mean we should... Slashdot excepting, of course.
The guy that wrote the Chernobyl Virus is in the Taiwan Army (although he was a student when he wrote it) and is considered a national hero. The Taiwanese and Communist Chinese have been probing each other's cyber defenses for sometime. For more on the situation go to this link at the Taipi Times: http://www.taipeitimes.com/beta/1999/09/15/story/0 000002650
Do you have any links on the internet to back this up? (hey, if two people say it on the internet, it must be true!) I searched quite a bit, couldn't find anything.
For one million turkish lire.
the Pentagon.
Is that your final answer?
Yes.
On Sept. 13, 1999 the Moon as you know it was replaced by a hologram and artificial gravity for planet earth was turned
Think people think! Act before it's too late!
HS: For one million Turkish Lire... HS: Who invented the internet? The Pentagon. HS: Is that your final answer? yes.
On Sept. 13, 1999 the Moon as you know it was replaced by a hologram and artificial gravity for planet earth was turned
... is the only real use for any form of mass-communication by the military.
Never mind 'electronic bombs which saturate the enemy's cyberspace' (I really hope this is a poor translation) -- get the enemy population to *agree* with you.
.c
I basically agree with Gomez on virtually all of his points. I'm an ex-soldier, veteran of the US Army. During the gulf war of 1990 that he talks about I was an infantryman and luckily we were not deployed to the gulf. We served a security role for the US Army Commander in Chief of Europe, General Saint. Very cush job. Anyhow, we got to see first hand what state of the art weaponry will do to better than average Soviet stuff. In my opinion it wasn't even a fair fight, from the very first day the Iraqi Army (in total) faced a crushing defeat. Had President Bush decided to go to Baghdad it would have meant hundreds of thousands of enemy casualties. The Chinese don't want a conflict with us, believe me. Not only would they be defeated in any real war (not electronic or cyber related) but completely and totally destroyed. Again it wouldn't even be fair. We've got weaponry that flies in the air with impunity! I hope to God for their sake that the Chinese government officials are just bluffing. Any attempt by them to harm US business or government computer systems through this kind of attack would be foolish and allow our vastly superior efforts to "blank" them. Folks, we fought the Gulf War standing on one foot with two hands tied behind our backs, what do you think would happen if our Government thought there was a "real" war? It'd make the death toll of Russian soldiers during WWII seem relatively small. This is mearly blustering and a provocation if the article is true.
First of all, I have to tell all Slashdotters that YOU ARE BEING DUPED !!
The scare-article was originated from Hongkong, by a group of anti-communist hackers who called themselves the "Blondes".
Yes, they are a group of chinamen who dyed their haird BLONDE, in their futile attempt to become white (and blone, and blue-eyed, and so on.)
HongKong is famous for Chinese who are so used to licking their (former) British masters' butts, and now that those British butts have all gone home, those "blonde" characters are looking for ways to lick Uncle Sam's butt instead.
One of the manifesto of the "HongKong Blonde" hacker-group is to "destroy all China electronic infrastructure", and now that they have FAILED in achieving anything, they turn to propaganda wars instead.
"Leaking" out false-news is one of the known way of creating rumors, and so, the "HongKong blondes" purposely "leaked" out "news" that the Chinese were targetting InterNet as their next battlefield.
This is not to say that the Chinese are not doing such things, but the report - I have read that "news-leak" 2 weeks ago - that SlashDot was duped to carry is so full of misinformation, it does not worth anybody's time to take it seriously.
Slashdot can do better, by carrying news pieces that are generally interesting. If Slashdot keep on carrying rubbish-news, my suggestion to Slashdot is to change its name into "National Enquirer, the Online Edition".
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The most dangerous threat of all is not an ATTACK on the Internet, but rather, for the Internet to continue on its merry way!! I mean, Yahoo.com -- and everything else on the 'net like it -- is just about the ugliest and most damaging thing stalking the planet today. Dig it; millions of people fooled into staring deep into computer screens all day, being sold useless crap and "services," and thinking that it's "freedom." Now THAT is something to fear.
You can just about automatically discount any book with "dragon" in the title as yellow-peril style scaremongering. The Chinese leadership's biggest concern right now is making sure that when capitalism wins there that they own the best-run companies.
There's a lot of money to be made right now selling books to schizotypic paranoids who are casting about after the fall of Communism for something to be afraid of. This article probably falls into that category. At least in intent.
But they may have actually stumbled onto something important. The Chinese government has actually attacked a Falun Gong website in Pennsylvania. Think about it. A foreign government has attacked a legitimate U.S.-based web site! How does that differ from an act of war?
Since we haven't really responded, what else might they think they could get away with? Wouldn't it be funny if this turned out to be the opening salvo in a new kind of war and nobody noticed?
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
And the top cyber-war technique is . . . (drumroll, please); YAHOO.COM !!! (wild cheering on all sides!). Yes folks, it's true; Yahoo.com and all the other mindless sites like it on the 'net constitute THE scariest and most damaging things you could possibly face. Because; they've fooled you into thinking that you SHOULD be staring into a flickering screen all day, then they sell you useless crap and "services" without letup, AND THEY GET YOU TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS FREEDOM!! So, just sign up for your FREE, personalized web news service, sending them all that private information about yourself, and then trust, yes TRUST, them to know what's best for you. Go log on : go to sleep : go shopping.
Taco Cowboy sounds like he just got off the boat and is looking for a job waiting tables in the local Chinese slopshop. Somebody call the INS....please.
I am General Phat Duc Whing, Commanding Officer of the "Official" Chinese Communist Cyber War Program. EVERYTHING IN THAT WASHINGTON TIMES ARTICLE IS TRUE!! We actually and truly are going to launch Cyber-War against your Internet installations. We're going to hit your Yahoo.com, we're going to scramble your Microsoft Network News Site, and we're even going to zap your - (drumroll, please) - PORNO WEBSITES !!! bwah-ha-ha-ha!! That'll bring you running dogs of Capitalist Imperialism to your knees !! (Er, I mean off your knees !?! No, wait! Down on your knees - er, .. um, .. uh, ... ? ANYHOW, I am declaring war -- CYBER-WAR -- starting January 1, 2000, just after the Rose Bowl game ends (I have 13 to 1 odds in a bet on Michigan State from Bill Clinton, who's foolishly putting his money on USC, can you believe it ?!? So I'm not starting the war until after I collect). ANYHOW, I am the ACTUAL Chinese Commander, and we're going to destroy your Nation by taking control of your Internet, and forcing -- that's right, FORCING -- you to download MP3's of the GooGoo Dolls until your Imperialistic hard drives burn up. Then, we'll perform a hostile cyber-takeover of The Learning Company, and start e-mailing you Hallmark (tm) Virtual Greeting Cards until you surrender !! Bwah-ha-ha-ha !!! Now you see how evil we Chinese Cyber-Terrorists can be !!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha.
Really, it doesn't matter if the "facts" in this article are true. Yes, it mostly sounds like the typical saber-rattling rhetoric of a communist power attempting to scare its neighbors. Its biggest effect will be to contribute to the growing wave of sinophobia in the world at large and America in particular. And that's a good thing. Because while we are here trying to get China into the WTO and make them a Most Favored Nation, they continue to oppress their people, they continue to oppress the people of Tibet (talk about "peaceful coexistence with neighbors -- ha!), they continue to threaten Taiwan with armed takeover, and they continue to build and aim nuclear missiles at our cities. We, the United States, are the most powerful nation on Earth ; for that we are reviled and hated, and we've made mistakes in the past, but by and large we try to do the Right Thing. The Chinese do not, and if we don't watch them, perhaps one day the United States won't be the most powerful nation on Earth, and then the anti American crowds that love to hate our corporations and our Big Macs will really have something to cry about.
Most likely, China is not a military threat to the US or China's neighbors in Asia. The weight of history says China is not a military threat. They were the empire of the sun - and have always been an inward turned empire. China tried to build a wall around its nation - it did not invade and take over its neighbors. On two occasions, expedition fleets were sent out to explore the world. I believe it took place in the 13 century. Each of the fleets had around 350 ships. When they returned the emperor declared there would be no more expeditions. That was that. Contrast that with the puny expeditions that occurred to Europe's age of discovery. China had the power base at numerous times in history to take over all of Asia much of the rest of the ancient world, but never did. I am not aware of China ever having a far flung empire, as most of the Western powers have. I have talked to some Chinese friends I have. These gentlemen spent the first 30+ years of their lives in China, before leaving for the US. One friend really enlightened me. In terms of land, he said that what is China's is China's, what is not China's is not China's. He said that as far as China is concerned, Tibet and Taiwan are China - and will remain so forever. He said that the Chinese have a very clear concept of their national boundaries and China has no desire to expand. (BTW: He also said that although Tibet is part of China, what is being done in Tibet is wrong - he thought the Tibetans should be allowed to live as they choose). He also said he finds it disturbing that the US is always sticking itself into other countries business. This is a common official stance of the Chinese government. Korea and Vietnam were military messes with China and the US backing opposite sides. The US was involved in major military actions in countries directly bordering China. Look how we reacted to Soviet military actions in Cuba and Central America - our back yard. Looking at the history of the region, and how the current Chinese government reacts, this paints a reassuring picture for me. I do not think China is a threat. They will arm themselves to the teeth, but they will not strike out. The biggest mistake is judging China from our Western viewpoint. It is a different culture with significantly different values, beliefs, and history. It is a very successful culture, simply be merit of its age. China will do things differently and it would be best if we worked to understand their reasons and accept their differences.
Most likely, China is not a military threat to the US or China's neighbors in Asia.
The weight of history says China is not a military threat. They were the empire of the sun - and have always been an inward turned empire. China tried to build a wall around its nation - it did not invade and take over its neighbors.
On two occasions, expedition fleets were sent out to explore the world. I believe it took place in the 13 century. Each of the fleets had around 350 ships. When they returned the emperor declared there would be no more expeditions. That was that. Contrast that with the puny expeditions that occurred to Europe's age of discovery. China had the power base at numerous times in history to take over all of Asia much of the rest of the ancient world, but never did. I am not aware of China ever having a far flung empire, as most of the Western powers have.
I have talked to some Chinese friends I have. These gentlemen spent the first 30+ years of their lives in China, before leaving for the US. One friend really enlightened me. In terms of land, he said that what is China's is China's, what is not China's is not China's. He said that as far as China is concerned, Tibet and Taiwan are China - and will remain so forever. He said that the Chinese have a very clear concept of their national boundaries and China has no desire to expand. (BTW: He also said that although Tibet is part of China, what is being done in Tibet is wrong - he thought the Tibetans should be allowed to live as they choose).
He also said he finds it disturbing that the US is always sticking itself into other countries business. This is a common official stance of the Chinese government.
Korea and Vietnam were military messes with China and the US backing opposite sides. The US was involved in major military actions in countries directly bordering China. Look how we reacted to Soviet military actions in Cuba and Central America - our back yard.
Looking at the history of the region, and how the current Chinese government reacts, this paints a reassuring picture for me. I do not think China is a threat. They will arm themselves to the teeth, but they will not strike out.
The biggest mistake is judging China from our Western viewpoint. It is a different culture with significantly different values, beliefs, and history. It is a very successful culture, simply be merit of its age. China will do things differently and it would be best if we worked to understand their reasons and accept their differences.
If Internet Warfare originating from China is such a pressing concern, why not just physically sever the backbones that connect china to the rest of the world?
Warfare over the internet is an excellent idea.
Ideally it is done through covert attacks to cause disruption, while not giving your target anything to clearly defend against. An enemy could be significantly weakened while causing little or no death and destruction.
This type of warfare goes against traditional western military strategy - which involved enormous destructive battles that consumed large amounts of resources for everyone involved.
It does fit beautifully with the military philosophy of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". Arguably the oldest and most brilliant treatise on warfare, it also happens to be Chinese.
BTW: The Art of War is an amazing book, applicable to warfare, business and many other areas of life. It stresses that the ultimate military victory is one in which the enemy is defeated with no loss of life or destruction.
EXCERPT
In wars of the future, China will face the enemy's more complete information technology with incomplete information technology. Because sometimes superior tactics can make up for inferior technology, China will still carry out its traditional warfare method of "you fight your way, I'll fight my way," and use its strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses and adhere to an active role in warfare. To do this, it appears that we must pay even more attention to:
- Fully utilizing the advantages of national territory and front information facilities to carry out reconnaissance on the enemy's situation and protect ourselves and attack the enemy
- Developing, improving, and utilizing China's information weapons in a concentrated way to carry out raids on enemy operation platforms and bases and damage and foil the enemy's offensive
- Emphasizing mobile war in the context of information warfare
- Conscientiously organizing sabotage operations by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, grasp exploitable opportunities, and make continuous raids to exhaust and wear down the enemy
- Organizing specialized combined special warfare troops and equip these with information technology weapons to carry out powerful special warfare.
In summary, our warfare methods must adapt to the needs of information warfare. We must use all types, forms, and methods of force, and especially make more use of nonlinear warfare and many types of information warfare methods which combine native and Western elements to use our strengths in order to attack the enemy's weaknesses, avoid being reactive, and strive for being active. In this way, it will be entirely possible for China to achieve comprehensive victory over the enemy even under the conditions of inferiority in information technology.Senior Colonel Wang Baocun and Li Fei Liberation Army Daily, June 13 and June 20, 1995. The authors work at the Academy of Military Science, Beijing.
EXCERPT
Computer virus warfare. Sharven [as translated] claims that: While the major 20th century weapons were tanks, the key 21st century weapon will be the computer. In future wars, operations against military computers will become a key type of information warfare. That will mean computer virus warfare. Computer viruses are special software programs that can alter or destroy a computer's normal operating programs. They are characterized by detection difficulty, rapid contagion, longstanding latency, and active and continuous encroachment, and can severely disrupt the C3I system, smart weapons, and combat potential. Some countries are now considering the organization and establishment of computer virus warfare platoons.
Wei Jincheng excerpted from the Military Forum column, Liberation Army Daily, June 25, 1996.
In short, the meaning and implications of a people's war have profoundly changed in the information age, and the chance of people taking the initiative and randomly participating in the war has increased. The ethnic signature and geographic mark on an information war are more pronounced and the application of strategies is more secretive and unpredictable.
Information-based confrontations will aim at reaching tangible peace through intangible war, maintaining the peace of hardware through software confrontations, and deterring and blackmailing the enemy with dominance in the possession of information. The bloody type of war will increasingly be replaced by contention for, and confrontations of, information.
The concept of people's war of the old days is bound to continue to be enriched, improved, and updated in the information age to take on a new form. We believe any wise military expert would come to the same conclusion.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
The US carrier group that was positioned near Taiwan during this summer's ruckus could have totally taken out the Chinese invasion force in one assault. And that wasn't even all of the US navy (something like one or two battle groups).
They have no aircraft carriers. None. No power projection there.
George Segal wrote an article (tiny summary) about this in Foreign Affairs a little while ago -- China, although the potential is great, China is not too strong right now.
There was some discussion about this a couple of years ago -- it's like there is a need to create an enemy to fill our cold-war mindsets (etc.etc.). Although in several ways China and the US/"western nations" are opposed, China is not the military power that the Soviet Union once was, and neither is China funding nuclear missiles in Cuba or whatever.
It's just not the right enemy for the job.
willis
there is no thing
what else could you want?
I *do* consider US Lawyers a big threat. I *do* consider US lobby groups a big threat. Not a threat to me or my country but to Internet and free speech
But somehow I think I have a couple of US supporters there...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
That's an horrible scenario... "My god, I couldn't connect to /. today... sob... China put it down... sob... So many young, gorgeous comments are now dead..." Get real. You cannot use the Internet as an efficient warfare. Even remotely. If it was the case website crackers would control half of the planet by now :)
SunTzu would state that this is a great way to wage war. Leave then people, infrastructure, and industry fully functional (intact) and force the government to surrender. Capitulation peace treaty agreed to and signed via internet technologies. Where the US goes the rest of the world will follow (surrender to China). THE END very small possibilty without major nuke exchange China is not quite ready and/or stupid, but it is funny for US to think about? Reality is a self-induced hallucination!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Once again, the Washington Times alerts us to the dangers of the Red Herring! Next week: the dangers of the Chinese Restaurant Conspiracy! One day, a PLA soldier just might step out of a bowl of rice and put a cap in your ass!
Thats why the five sided building declared windows a national security threat earlier this year. Why? One real big single point of failure. Imagine not a hostile opposing nation but just a bug. Imagine what would happen to the US if every computer running Windows suffered some serious problem. Now imagine what even a small nation could do. No need to invest in biological virus when computer ones can do more damage.
CAPSLOCK ABUSE (-1)
Yes, a new category, so that those folks that insist on yelling at us will have their very own w to be moderated down.
:)
Interesting. My quick search also turned up nothing... Then again, I doubt that too many people would be eager to admit a tactic like that. I've heard the same story though, except in the version I got, we dropped extra-large condoms, labelled as small, on the outlying islands of Japan.
The intention was demoralizing the potential 'human-shield' of stick-wielding peasants, who would need to be slaughtered if we committed to a conventional invasion. Due to their strong allegiance to the emperor, it was feared that peasants would be out on beaches, throwing rocks at the landing U.S. troops.
I think (grind-grind-grind - reaching WAY back) that the story came from a Political Science class, and stemmed from a lecture on the agruments for using nuclear weapons against Japan. Japanese civilian casualties were a major factor, and their patriarchial society was believed to be intimidatable (new word!!) by the 'giant American penis'.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
"The US gets all whipped up anytime some country even hints that they might be increasing their military in some fashion, even though we easily have the most powerful arsenal on the planet."
Sounds a LOT like Microsoft...
I am fearfull of this scenario because by no means is the government a superpower when it comes to Networking and the data world. 2/3's of all schemes come because of hackers that beat an old scheme, so the govt. encrypts more systems, so hackers get better and break more systems. The government spends millions of dollars throwing hackers behind bars, and hushing them up from the media world, when in actuallity this is almost like severing an arm of a resource. Im not justifying what some hackers do, but i say hire some for these types of situations, i know id feel a lot safer having a joe shmo tech genius developing systems, than i would a corrupt, power ridden contest of condescending officials. FREE KEVIN!!!!
Dont let school get in the way of your education
Dont let school get in the way of your education
~Noah~
"China could use against us" Why would China have beef with us? We are not US.
It's called Echelon
Jeez, guys - Remember the hardware - China has a finite number of backbone links to the Internet, just like it has a finite number of phone trunk lines. I'm sure that some genius at the pentagon has mapped out a way to track that. If hostilities break out you just cut the cords. If you have access to the physical backbones, sever them. If not, packet filter *at the nations backbones* to effectively make China disappear. Then you dog Fido would have as much chance of wrecking cyber havoc as the Chinese.
All you apathetic lefties who dismiss this as "nothing" always seem to forget one thing. We're a democracy which, while not perfect (what is?), is certainly open to more oversight than a closed, communist system ruled by a few. Absolute power absolutely corrupts.
What scares me even more than the media influence, though, is how this all ties in to a barely-mentioned event back when NATO was bombing Yugoslavia. NATO bombers hit the Chinese embassy. Just think about that for a minute. NATO forces, largely made of US bombers, hit what is by law a part of China. Of course, it was quickly brushed over as an accident, or collateral damage in a nearby attack, or a misguided guided missile. But doesn't that just smell like far too frightening of a coincidence? And just for some perspective, imagine the reaction that the US would have if one of it's embassies had been hit by China in some pro-communism military action in a smaller country.
Maybe it was just an accident ... or perhaps the US military really does share the sentiments of articles such as this one from the Washington Post. And perhaps they would go so far as to provoke another nuclear power in the world, just to keep their paychecks coming in. I don't know about you, but that scares the hell outta me.
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
You guys may not know this, but during the Kosovo war we were ready to hack into computer mainframe's and shutdown electricity etc.. It is not practical however for China to attack the U.S. in this way simply because of the fact that their whole export and import system is based on the U.S. hence it would be foolish for them to try anything. This infact is a cold war in a sort.