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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”

#81

Post by vkou »

raverbashing wrote: post #73
pessimizer wrote: post #6

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

Oh poor China... They just want to do whatever they want without anyone messing with them and publicizing it. Maybe because as opposed to Chinese and other oppressive governments, the western press actually makes the people informed. Sometimes.

"Trust me, I have evidence for a theory that is politically convenient for my boss, but I won't tell you what it is" is not keeping people informed.

It's propaganda that pushes an agenda. That agenda may even be correct, but an outside observer who can't verify any of the evidence can't tell.

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

#82

Post by giardini »

dcolkitt wrote: post #64
tree3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime the CCP does something bad, there's always someone like you to downplay it in the comments...

[flagged]

Just a detail about language and meaning. I think you may have meant to say:

>"if it was up to me, all of the senior members of the CCP would be tried for crimes against humanity."thereby leaving punishment to depend on the determination of criminal activity,

instead of

dcolkitt>"if it was up to me, all of the senior members of the CCP would be tried and executed for crimes against humanity. "*

The form you used describes a sort of "Judge Roy Bean" justice, whereby you assume them guilty of crimes. But if you do assume them guilty, why a trial? Simplify your language to the more succinct:

>"if it was up to me, the senior members of the CCP would be executed. "

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

#83

Post by goodcjw2 »

orbifold wrote: post #75
RobertoG wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are in all out conflict with China because some super computing sites were "attacked"? That's not a very responsible statement.

Well this is clearly a hostile act during a time in which several European countries have declared medical emergencies. They were not just "attacked" but have been completely offline for almost two weeks now ( https://www.hpcwire.com/2020/05/18/hacking-streak-forces-eur... ). In Germany it is (incident was 15.05) - NEMO (Freiburg) - bwUniCluster 2.0 and ForHLR II (Karlsruhe) - Hawk (Stuttgart) - Leibniz Supercomputin…

Facts:

1 - HPC centers in Europes are down.

2 - Those are useful resources to battle battle against COVID-19.

3 - HPC centers are down due to malware infections.

4 - FBI warned and Department of Homeland Security warns of possible cyberattacks targeting COVID-19 research.

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

#84

Post by free_rms »

jorblumesea wrote: post #78
free_rms wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance. Second off.. aside from the total lack of evidence, why would the Chinese be interested in sabotage here? American discovery of a vaccine means they can rip it off, they're definitely not gonna be paying anyone for it. If we're selling it at exorbitant prices while they give it away practically for free to African countries, that's a huge…

> the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance. Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign. The example you gave, Merkel's phone, is a textbook example. Spy all you want, but we're not stealing IP or sabotaging power grids (to my knowledge). We're not interfering with other countries' covid response or possibly corrupting medical records. > why would the Chinese be interested in sabotage here? Pre…

> Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign

It would take a book-length treatment to evaluate that sentence, but I don't think it's justified. We've been VERY active, around the whole world, since WWII. China's only started to look past their immediate neighbors recently.

I guess 'benign' can do a lot of work for you if you think we're the protagonists of history.

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

#85

Post by vkou »

jorblumesea wrote: post #80
vkou wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the difference is that the West is engaging in surveillance and not sabotage. 1. Stuxnet. 2. What makes you think this is not surveillance? 3. What makes you certain that CIA black budgets are not spent on sabotage? They don't exactly let anyone audit them...

1. Iranian nuclear capabilities are a "legitimate target". For whatever that is worth. We're not sabotaging medical records or taking down Tehran's power grid. 2. Textbook definition of surveillance is watching and collecting. "Active measures" are "spy stuff" but usually far outside of the scope of intelligence collection. 3. Fair point, no way to know. But from what has come out from PRISM/NSA leaks, it honestly lo…

> We're not sabotaging medical records or taking down Tehran's power grid.

Has China sabotaged anyone's medical records, or taken down any power grids lately?

> Fair point, no way to know. But from what has come out from PRISM/NSA leaks, it honestly looks to be just purely surveillance.

Snowden was an NSA contractor, the NSA would not be responsible for sabotage, their raison d'etre is passive surveillance.

The CIA would be, and nobody's dumped 50 TB of random powerpoints from their Sharepoint deployment. However, various leaks over the years strongly imply that they do conduct sabotage - directly, or by funding saboteurs.

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

#86

Post by free_rms »

vkou wrote: post #85
jorblumesea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Iranian nuclear capabilities are a "legitimate target". For whatever that is worth. We're not sabotaging medical records or taking down Tehran's power grid. 2. Textbook definition of surveillance is watching and collecting. "Active measures" are "spy stuff" but usually far outside of the scope of intelligence collection. 3. Fair point, no way to know. But from what has come out from PRISM/NSA leaks, it honestly lo…

> We're not sabotaging medical records or taking down Tehran's power grid. Has China sabotaged anyone's medical records, or taken down any power grids lately? > Fair point, no way to know. But from what has come out from PRISM/NSA leaks, it honestly looks to be just purely surveillance. Snowden was an NSA contractor, the NSA would not be responsible for sabotage, their raison d'etre is passive surveillance. The CIA w…

We did have the Church Commission.

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

#87

Post by jorblumesea »

free_rms wrote: post #84
jorblumesea wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance. Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign. The example you gave, Merkel's phone, is a textbook example. Spy all you want, but we're not stealing IP or sabotaging power grids (to my knowledge). We're not interfering with other countries' covid response or possibly corrupting medical records. > why would the Chinese be interested in sabotage here? Pre…

> Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign It would take a book-length treatment to evaluate that sentence, but I don't think it's justified. We've been VERY active, around the whole world, since WWII. China's only started to look past their immediate neighbors recently. I guess 'benign' can do a lot of work for you if you think we're the protagonists of history.

I don't think anyone would ever argue that the West isn't active or that they've never done anything wrong. Obviously there are huge wikipedia articles and hundreds of books on the subject.

But from what it seems of what little we know of that world, the US seems to have some kind of value system, and the CCP has almost none. Freedom of speech is a good example. If the US were to spy on a citizen, they wouldn't end up in a concentration camp. The US also encourages its allies, as much as it can, to promote "Western democratic values". For example, we were instrumental in turning South Korea into a democracy, from a dictatorship.

So it's not as simple as "US bad china good" or "China bad, US good" but I think it's pretty clear China is a totalitarian system which has few scruples, if any. So that's what we mean by "benign". Some rough understanding of "the right thing". It's not that the US does everything great, forever, because clearly...

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

#88

Post by dooglius »

giardini wrote: post #82
dcolkitt wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Just a detail about language and meaning. I think you may have meant to say: >"if it was up to me, all of the senior members of the CCP would be tried for crimes against humanity." thereby leaving punishment to depend on the determination of criminal activity, instead of dcolkitt>"if it was up to me, all of the senior members of the CCP would be tried and executed for crimes against humanity. "* The form you used des…

I think that's a bit uncharitable, I interpreted the phrase to mean "tried and, except in the very unlikely case that guilt cannot be proved, executed".

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

#89

Post by horsemessiah »

How can western leaders condemn China's lack of publishing info related to COVID-19 and protect private research for curing it at the same time? Research like this should be public and accessible to everyone. I don't know why I shouldn't applaud any hackers spreading this information.

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

#90

Post by pjc50 »

orbifold wrote: post #37

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 a…

So, when do we launch the nukes?

If you're talking about conflict, be clear how far both sides might be willing to escalate.

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