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China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

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Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#31

Post by JonnieCache »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #30

I grow weary of reading these "hacking," "cyberspy," etc articles. They always read like a plot of a bad action movie (Hackers, Swordfish, etc) rather than what people who actually work in the sector (IT, Security, even programming) have to deal with day to day. Just once, I'd love to read an article that talks in specifics, like how they got in (e.g. via exploit XYZ), how they spread (e.g. via hole in network policy…

They're here to ease the passing of specific US legislation in aid of the military industrial complex. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5642408

I really wish people would stop posting them.

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#32

Post by adaml_623 »

Asterick6 wrote: post #18
a_p wrote: post #11

The only thing as breathtaking as the amount of information the Chinese military has stolen is how dysfunctional their military is. Here [1] is an excellent article about corruption in the Chinese military. The Chinese government is a bizarre mix of authoritarianism, greed, patronage and nationalism, and it has no clear structure. The military is no different. It doesn't matter how much technology they have; as long…

Such articles like the OP's seem to cater to alarmism and hyperbole as these kind of events occur all the time. The difference here is that the US gov is being quite unprofessional by resorting to publicizing these events. Also, it's quite trivial/foolish to care whether or not any country will overtake the US (or another country). The way I see it - decreasing the US' influence may actually be beneficial. Rather tha…

"quite unprofessional by resorting to publicizing these events"

What kind of bizarre world are you imagining where governments are meant to or do act "professionally". The international diplomatic community is indeed a noxious swamp where immoral and illegal activities get ignored and hushed up all the time. However it's also an environment where governments release stories to their populations through newspapers. Like China provoking that fight with Japan over islands and pretty much every story in the Daily Mail in the UK (or is it the Sun?).

The activities described in this article are shameful and it is one of the tragedies of this age that large organisations whether governments or corporations literally have no shame or morals. And more importantly nor do we have a way of requiring them to act rationally, reasonably or morally.

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#33

Post by raverbashing »

yuliyp wrote: post #23
venomsnake wrote: post #12

Well ... if you don't want something hacked don't expose it to the internet. Is there a reason why corporations does not have inner network that is electrically disconnected from the internet where the sensitive data is stored and manipulated? Buying a second pc for every person is pocket change.

People want to work remotely. They want email on their iPhones/Androids/Blackberries. They want to e-mail people at other companies. Every once in a while you need a nontrivial amount of information to cross that airgap. Then you have Stuxnet-style attacks to worry about, too.

Yes

I'd find it very hard pressed to find a place where you can work remotely. (Especially with all the useless crap IT pushes usually)

Or make it easier, you can work remotely only by remote desktop access (like Google does internally).

(Yes, you can capture a video of the data, but it's one thing to see a picture of a cad drawing, another one to have the file)

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#34

Post by beachstartup »

alan_cx wrote: post #26

I find it surprising that it would seem that the only country on the face of this planet hacking foreign countries and business are Chinese. I'm so pleased that no one in the US, UK, Israel, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Japan, Canada, etc would clearly never dream of such things. On top of that, I cant even begin to imagine why countries other than the US would seek intelligence to help them in defence. Goo…

china is basically doing exactly what the US did to come to economic power and people are shocked, shocked! to see it.

people really, truly, honesty believe the last 200 years of US and European ascent didn't happen, as if the world sprang forth fully formed in 1997. the vast majority of people haven't spent 5 minutes really thinking about how this stuff works.

a lot of this double-standard is inextricably tied to racism also.

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#35

Post by mechashiva »

I worked, long ago, at the group in QinetiQ that got hacked. A couple of observations:

1. The Talon project (the robot pictured) is not, in fact, super secret. I worked with the Talon platform, and while my projects were "confidential", it wasn't some super secret thing. Would the government rather not have the Chinese have that IP? Of course. Is it at a security disaster? Hardly. That's not to say that they didn't have other, much more secretive, projects that were also compromised; it's just that the stuff being reported in this article isn't, like, nuclear launch codes.

2. IT security there (and, as I understand it, at similar government contractors) really was laughable. Total cowboy land. Assuming it hasn't revolutionized its security and culture, this attack didn't need to be some amazing exploit; it may have been a phishing attack or something similarly straightforward. So while the article lacks details, I'm not sure there's anything interesting to find here about the merits of the attack.

FWIW.

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#36

Post by zimbatm »

Vivtek wrote: post #28
alan_cx wrote: post #26

I find it surprising that it would seem that the only country on the face of this planet hacking foreign countries and business are Chinese. I'm so pleased that no one in the US, UK, Israel, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Japan, Canada, etc would clearly never dream of such things. On top of that, I cant even begin to imagine why countries other than the US would seek intelligence to help them in defence. Goo…

For the record, the Chinese don't actually own that large a portion of the US national debt, which is almost entirely held by American organizations. Propping up our currency, now, that's a looming problem - but one that will hurt China a lot more than it'll hurt us when it hits the fan.

Sources please ?

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#37

Post by [deleted] »

rdl wrote: post #10
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they can, what makes you think they aren't? But a more interesting question is to look at what information is presented and what is missing. How much is new, how much is old. Then on policy stories like this one I sometimes pop over to the senate web site and look at what's coming up on the senate calendar [1] and oh look, on May 7th they are having a hearing to talk about Hearings to examine the Department…

The Air Force and defense industrial complex are using this as a budget point, but they are also facing legitimate threats to both government and private industry. Just like during the cold war, there were legitimate threats from the Soviets, but it also became a self-perpetuating thing. The irony is this time we're borrowing money to defend ourselves from the Chinese from...the Chinese. So at some point a marginal d…

[deleted]

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#38

Post by Irishsteve »

jussij wrote: post #20
jamieb wrote: post #4

Its not what they stole that worries me. Its what they modified and left behind.

So now we no why the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is so far over budget. The Chinese tweaked the plans so when they tried building the thing nothing would fit.

Ah the metric system could have caused that.

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#39

Post by adventured »

beachstartup wrote: post #34
alan_cx wrote: post #26

I find it surprising that it would seem that the only country on the face of this planet hacking foreign countries and business are Chinese. I'm so pleased that no one in the US, UK, Israel, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Japan, Canada, etc would clearly never dream of such things. On top of that, I cant even begin to imagine why countries other than the US would seek intelligence to help them in defence. Goo…

china is basically doing exactly what the US did to come to economic power and people are shocked, shocked! to see it. people really, truly, honesty believe the last 200 years of US and European ascent didn't happen, as if the world sprang forth fully formed in 1997. the vast majority of people haven't spent 5 minutes really thinking about how this stuff works. a lot of this double-standard is inextricably tied to ra…

Who did the US steal the transistor, cell phone, modern operating system, microprocessor, router and Internet from?

Did the US steal all the oil in Titusville (which instigated a massive economic boom) from Britain? How about all the chemistry work and exploration work that the US did to make oil useful and plentiful? Standard Oil had one of the most advanced R&D labs on the planet. I guess all the advanced technology out of Xerox PARC and Bell Labs was stolen from... Madagascar?

Who did Tesla steal his inventions from while he was in America? How about George Westinghouse? Edison invented a few things that you might have heard of.

We could be here all night.

Re: China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets

#40

Post by adventured »

zimbatm wrote: post #36
Vivtek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, the Chinese don't actually own that large a portion of the US national debt, which is almost entirely held by American organizations. Propping up our currency, now, that's a looming problem - but one that will hurt China a lot more than it'll hurt us when it hits the fan.

Sources please ?

The Fed is the #1 individual holder of US debt (for sovereigns or banks). Social Security holds $2.7 trillion. China has about $1.1 trillion, just in front of Japan.

China's holdings are actually not a big deal. If pressed to do so, the Fed could print a trillion dollars tomorrow and buy it all back (with some obvious consequences, but non-the-less).

"The breakout of foreign-held debt shows that China was the largest holder, at $1.161 trillion (as of October 2012, most recent data). Japan came in second, at $1.134 trillion."

http://useconomy.about.com/od/monetarypolicy/f/Who-Owns-US-N...

There's a massive number of sources, but here you go:

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations...

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