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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”

#21

Post by natechols »

elliekelly wrote: post #3

I appreciate that there’s probably a lot I don’t know or understand about the national security aspects of this but it seems wrong to not share as much information as possible with as many researchers as possible in order to help as many as people as possible. Protecting security interests is one thing but this press release specifically mentions protecting intellectual property and that seems kind of tone deaf. I al…

I take it you've never worked in information security, because cleaning up after a mess like this is an enormous time suck and they will need to audit their data to make sure it hasn't been "adjusted". (From a national security perspective, I bet derailing a competitor's vaccine trials is at least as valuable as "stealing" data that was already going to become public in the near future.) That means spending time and money that would be better spent doing just about anything else, if it weren't for human nature.

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

#22

Post by chrononaut »

tehjoker wrote: post #11

I can't recall the last time I saw a public statement by the FBI that wasn't a lie used for some nefarious purpose.

The FBI lists _many_ public statements per day about all sorts of operations and arrests: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel

What you're encountering might just be a selection effect since many of these press releases don't raise people's interests. Perhaps it's the people amplifying certain stories to drive their narrative than the FBI themselves?

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

#23

Post by jeffbee »

pcbro141 wrote: post #7

Shouldn't all countries be working together openly on fighting the pandemic? Given that it's hurting the whole world.

It's not hurting the whole world equally. It's been far worse for countries peopled with and led by idiots, like the USA. As long as this goes on it benefits China very greatly. We've already seen a huge shift away from the idea of American global leadership.

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

#24

Post by narrator »

If the PRC gets a workable vaccine first, they can gain influence to get everyone to use a WHO run global vaccine passport instead of separate national systems. They can then tie the WHO's databank into their global surveillance system and franchise out China's surveillance state and social credit score system throughout the world.

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

#25

Post by caseysoftware »

elliekelly wrote: post #3

I appreciate that there’s probably a lot I don’t know or understand about the national security aspects of this but it seems wrong to not share as much information as possible with as many researchers as possible in order to help as many as people as possible. Protecting security interests is one thing but this press release specifically mentions protecting intellectual property and that seems kind of tone deaf. I al…

First, it lists "affiliated with COVID-19-related research" not "exclusively COVID-19 research" so could be more than just the current research.

More importantly, while data theft is bad, data tampering could be much worse.

What happens to people's confidence, hope, and trust if a "remarkably effective" drug turns out to be a total dud or even dangerous because the underlying data was modified?

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

#26

Post by boomboomsubban »

bt1a wrote: post #15
pessimizer wrote: post #6

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

While the admin is currently pushing a very negative image against China, I do not believe the FBI would do that so lightly.

Why would the FBI be hesitant about faking/sensationalizing this? It's nearly impossible to prove, China's unlikely to make an issue out of it, and even if the lie got exposed what punishment would they face?

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

#27

Post by kube-system »

coliveira wrote: post #5

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.

Compromising remote systems puts researchers, their work, and patient rights at risk. Patents are published publicly and available free of charge, so I'm not sure how that would be a reasonable justification for compromising other's computers. "Research" per se isn't patentable anyway.

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

#28

Post by natechols »

tehjoker wrote: post #17
coliveira wrote: post #5

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 withh…

This is a gross misunderstanding of what patent and copyright actually mean - specifically, they exist to encourage sharing of information, not secrecy. They require full disclosure by definition, so you can't patent a trade secret without revealing it to everyone. There's a period of exclusivity (~20 years), which is very different from "withholding information", but that's only after the IP has been published.

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

#29

Post by tehjoker »

chrononaut wrote: post #22
tehjoker wrote: post #11

I can't recall the last time I saw a public statement by the FBI that wasn't a lie used for some nefarious purpose.

The FBI lists _many_ public statements per day about all sorts of operations and arrests: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel What you're encountering might just be a selection effect since many of these press releases don't raise people's interests. Perhaps it's the people amplifying certain stories to drive their narrative than the FBI themselves?

The FBI is a highly political organization that uses its position of authority to routinely intervene in politics often at the behest of the state.

Usually I list the interference they do in left wing movements where they spy and infiltrate spaces to disrupt and discredit vital activities aimed at e.g. preserving the environment. As a highlight, they tried to get MLK to kill himself. Much of this was documented by the revelations of COINTELPRO. That stuff was never punished, so why would they ever stop? It's good for the integrity of the state.

For a conservative example, the recent "Obamagate" disclosures show how the FBI was instrumental in creating the now totally discredited Russiagate conspiracy which raged in the media for two years as a ploy to disrupt the Trump administration by an insane xenophobic conspiracy that Trump was the manchurian candidate, going so far as to create speculation that he was some kind of soviet sleeper agent from the 1980s. He's of course a bad guy, but this stuff is off the wall.

Now the FBI is being brought under control by the current administration which is attempting to distract from it's total failure to respond to the pandemic and its actions which are widely acknowledged to have made it far worse that it should have been. The United States, the richest most powerful country in the world, has had one of the worst responses in the world. So the administration is attempting to clumsily pin the blame on a "foreign enemy" by saying it's attempting unfairly to do something about the pandemic. What an incredible world we live in.

EDIT: To conclude: Is withholding medical information in a pandemic for any reason ethical? What about for making money? Is stealing such information from such an actor unethical?

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

#30

Post by caseysoftware »

narrator wrote: post #24

If the PRC gets a workable vaccine first, they can gain influence to get everyone to use a WHO run global vaccine passport instead of separate national systems. They can then tie the WHO's databank into their global surveillance system and franchise out China's surveillance state and social credit score system throughout the world.

Those are good points, I'd add two more:

- "If you want to buy our vaccine, you need to buy Huawei equipment for all your communications systems" - we've already seen that in France with PPE

- What would that do for investment in vaccine research if you know China can drop in theirs at any time and address the entire market? Investments dries up, China pulls back, go back to 1.

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