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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”

#31

Post by tehjoker »

natechols wrote: post #28
tehjoker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They exist to encourage sharing of information in the context of a private marketplace. Most useful technology is created by state-funded research over decades. The private sector just monopolizes the results. If anything, competition would be better if there were no patents. If employers could simply poach key employees by offering good salaries, they would get that information quite easily.

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

#32

Post by coliveira »

natechols wrote: post #28
tehjoker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are misunderstanding the matter of patents. Modern patents exist precisely because of the inevitability of industrial espionage, which is largely practiced by all developed countries. The goal is that, even after a trade secret is stolen, it will be made useless because nobody can use that information. So the goal is not to "share knowledge", but to avoid the practical use of knowledge that was shared by any means.

Also, you are mistaken in thinking that, by publishing a patent, the company is sharing knowledge. Quite the contrary, the contents of a patent gives only the minimum necessary to protect a crucial aspect of a business secret. Most patents are opaque and don't give any concrete business information that be used to successfully replicate what it is trying to conceal.

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

#33

Post by mellow2020 »

tehjoker wrote: post #29
chrononaut wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

That doesn't make it magically impossible for the PRC to do nefarious things of their own, which I'm sure you'd agree the FBI would gladly publicize.

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

#34

Post by oefrha »

toshk wrote: post #9
bt1a wrote: 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.

Similarly, I recall a strain of malware being attributed to Chinese hackers because variable names were in Chinese; then when you actually inspect the code, it's clearly Unicode gibberish generated by an obfuscator... That is to say, the hackers weren't even trying to be misleading, it was just a result of obfuscation reminiscent of mojibake. (I read the article on Ars Technica but don't remember enough details to find the article.)

If I ever code a hacking tool I'll throw in some Korean comments for sure.

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

#35

Post by natechols »

tehjoker wrote: post #31
natechols wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They exist to encourage sharing of information in the context of a private marketplace. Most useful technology is created by state-funded research over decades. The private sector just monopolizes the results. If anything, competition would be better if there were no patents. If employers could simply poach key employees by offering good salaries, they would get that information quite easily.

> Most useful technology is created by state-funded research over decades. The private sector just monopolizes the results.

This is another gross oversimplification at best, and I have yet to hear anyone who has spent significant amounts of time in either public or private sector R&D make such a claim. Real life, and product development in particular, is not so easily reduced to catchy political slogans.

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

#37

Post by orbifold »

Just for additional context several super computing sites in Europe were attacked a few weeks ago and are still down, among them PizDaint at CSCS, which ranks 6th in the world, several super computing sites in Germany (FZ Juelich) and so on. I think no-one wishes this to turn into a kinetic war, but for all we know besides the economic warfare that has been going on for quite some time, this feels like we are in an all out conflict with China.

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

#38

Post by natechols »

coliveira wrote: post #32
natechols wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are misunderstanding the matter of patents. Modern patents exist precisely because of the inevitability of industrial espionage, which is largely practiced by all developed countries. The goal is that, even after a trade secret is stolen, it will be made useless because nobody can use that information. So the goal is not to "share knowledge", but to avoid the practical use of knowledge that was shared by any mean…

In the USA, patents are explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and the purpose is to incentivize disclosure, not because the founders were worried about industrial espionage. It would have been awfully difficult for hostile powers to remotely hack our R&D facilities in 1789.

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

#39

Post by smkellat »

If you’re doing research of any significance in today’s world and don’t have an active security program looking for harmful actions by foreign intelligence your organization opens itself up for all sorts of nasty liabilities. You don’t even have to have an electronic intrusion. The PRC’s government also pays people off as the case of this former Cleveland Clinic researcher shows: https://www.cleveland.com/crime/2020/05/former-cleveland-cli...

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

#40

Post by cat199 »

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…

> to not share as much information as possible with as many researchers as possible in order to help as many as people as possible.

this presumes that the stolen information would be used 'to help as many people as possible'..

Also, 1st country with viable vaccine/treatment/etc will have a huge geopolitical bargaining chip & it will likely be used as such no matter the country of origin.

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