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The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

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Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#12
post #9
post #2

I've always wondered how you can be so sure it's PRC in the age of easily being able to mask your true IP address. Perhaps the identified attacks have been previously linked with the PRC, or another option is that the actors were not as covert as they thought. Like remember the indictment of 12 russians ( https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download ) The FBI linked a pool of bitcoins used to purchase a VPN service…

Same here. I remember once I was watching the news and they claimed a hack was done by Russians because they found Russian comments in the code. That didn't sound very convincing :). The ledger evidence sounds better. At the same time in this case I would be more surprised if the PRC , since their need for control, and since the stakes are extremely high, wasn't doing such things.

Exactly my friend, seems like it'd be trivial to leave misleading clues.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#14
post #2

I've always wondered how you can be so sure it's PRC in the age of easily being able to mask your true IP address. Perhaps the identified attacks have been previously linked with the PRC, or another option is that the actors were not as covert as they thought. Like remember the indictment of 12 russians ( https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download ) The FBI linked a pool of bitcoins used to purchase a VPN service…

I think sometimes they just blame whoever suits the political narrative. The Chinese replaced the Russians as the boogeyman de jour a short while back, so of course they will now be blamed by default.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#16
post #9
post #2

I've always wondered how you can be so sure it's PRC in the age of easily being able to mask your true IP address. Perhaps the identified attacks have been previously linked with the PRC, or another option is that the actors were not as covert as they thought. Like remember the indictment of 12 russians ( https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download ) The FBI linked a pool of bitcoins used to purchase a VPN service…

Same here. I remember once I was watching the news and they claimed a hack was done by Russians because they found Russian comments in the code. That didn't sound very convincing :). The ledger evidence sounds better. At the same time in this case I would be more surprised if the PRC , since their need for control, and since the stakes are extremely high, wasn't doing such things.

Was googling to see if I could find a news article to back up my memory.

Instead I found an article on Wikileaks claiming CIA executed false flag hacking operations: https://theintercept.com/2017/03/08/wikileaks-files-show-the...

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#17

This is information that can save lives, so I support any nation to hack on COVID research, anywhere in the world. If they patent COVID research, I also support breaking any patent.

Until the fairly recent proliferation of trade agreements that are negotiated out of the view of the public, the investor relations and patent/copyright clauses that prevented the sharing of medical information were not common and were routinely broken by most developing nations. The business community's wishes had no power there, and quite arguably when it comes to medicine, it is a crime against the people to withhold lifesaving information.

In fact, until the US became top dog in the post-war era, we pirated everything we could from England, especially industrial know-how so that we could promote our own development. It is only after we reached hegemonic status that we started enforcing these ludicrous agreements in order to preserve our own businesses' position.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#18
post #8

Why would they be press-releasing this other than to drive public opinion against China?

To publicize the fact that these sort of attacks can be tracked. Similar to when they publish information about particularly crafty drug houses they bust: so that people planning on building a drug house think "well, if they got that house, then they'll definitely find out the one I'm planning, so maybe I'd better not."

This doesn't demonstrate that these kinds of attacks can be tracked though. If I were planning similar attacks, I'd just acquire a Chinese IP address and assume they'd take the blame.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#19

Of course! China is very good at stealing things which the US does not possess. Last time it was the 5G technology, remember?

Comment history https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ezVoodoo

What about my comment history? Do facts scare you? Can you not bear the pain to watch the video which shows something contradicting to the information you receive from your media?

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#20
post #2

I've always wondered how you can be so sure it's PRC in the age of easily being able to mask your true IP address. Perhaps the identified attacks have been previously linked with the PRC, or another option is that the actors were not as covert as they thought. Like remember the indictment of 12 russians ( https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download ) The FBI linked a pool of bitcoins used to purchase a VPN service…

>Perhaps the identified attacks have been previously linked with the PRC

I'm sure the PRC has used password spraying before, the only detail mentioned. Tgatd about as easily forged as the IP address though.

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