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Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

washingtonpost.com

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#61
post #57
post #30

As a Chinese I would prefer to believe our government is behind this. Do you know Beijing (or even the whole country) has a serious smog issue which was first uncovered by American embassy in Beijing? The incident makes the government lose their trust in public, and for quite some time people only want to trust forecast from NOAA in stead of Beijing. If Chinese government hacked NOAA, it would be out of their intenti…

Don't Chinese citizens dream of making their country a two-party or multiparty democracy like US or India, respectively? This one-party autocratic rule will one day make people insane.

That's like asking: "Why don't orphans just buy new parents at a mom and pop store?"

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#62
I don't know who is really doing this or what the impact will be but let's pretend for a moment that the chinese government is responsible. They are largely funding our government. We need each other.

I wonder if a serious problem with the world is due to secrets that allow some to have power over others. For example, a company with a patent on a drug that costs $80K has power over those who will die without it. If you can't afford it, have you seriously harmed the company if you violate the patent to manufacture it in a 3rd world country for people who could never pay for the drug. When is human life more important that a company's right to a patent (or information)?

The chinese have a serious problem in the form of several hundred million people who need to be moved out of poverty. To help them get there they seem to be mining a precious resource: information in 1st world countries. Is this different (or worse) than 1st world countries mining precious resources in the 3rd world?

What is the net result? China will use this information to make itself wealthy enough to buy more of our goods? China will acquire the ability to make our goods cheaper than we can make them and force us to work harder?

I'm not saying "stealing" is "right" but it seems to be an important way all 1st world countries became richer. The notion of "right" is suspect given that history is written by the winner.

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#63
post #62

I don't know who is really doing this or what the impact will be but let's pretend for a moment that the chinese government is responsible. They are largely funding our government. We need each other. I wonder if a serious problem with the world is due to secrets that allow some to have power over others. For example, a company with a patent on a drug that costs $80K has power over those who will die without it. If y…

Your comparison with "mining precious resources in the 3rd world" is interesting, because China is doing that too:

http://en.starafrica.com/news/mozambique-chinese-firms-clinc...

http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Data/Africa_file/Manualreport/c...

My experience five years ago was that regular African people were not too keen on the Chinese mining companies that had set up shop. But perhaps there was not enough competition to mine more locally.

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#64
post #57
post #30

As a Chinese I would prefer to believe our government is behind this. Do you know Beijing (or even the whole country) has a serious smog issue which was first uncovered by American embassy in Beijing? The incident makes the government lose their trust in public, and for quite some time people only want to trust forecast from NOAA in stead of Beijing. If Chinese government hacked NOAA, it would be out of their intenti…

Don't Chinese citizens dream of making their country a two-party or multiparty democracy like US or India, respectively? This one-party autocratic rule will one day make people insane.

I don't think anyone dreams of a 2 party system like the US. There's probably more factions within the Communist party...

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#65
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 is just as easy to pirate so the logic is not solid there.

I find it very hard to believe myself, because when you can obtain for free, why not go for the latest, shiniest version? But the reality is, most of Chinese computers are still stuck with XP, whatever the reason is.

XP was made for much weaker machines, older hardware. When you earn 100 USD per week you don't upgrade hardware as long as you can. Just as an example from another part of the world, I live in Europe and I've used a Sony notebook from 2002 until the last year, when the hardware started to fail. I guarantee you that Windows 7 can't be installed on it. Even the newer Ubuntu versions weren't installable from one point on.

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#67
post #57
post #30

As a Chinese I would prefer to believe our government is behind this. Do you know Beijing (or even the whole country) has a serious smog issue which was first uncovered by American embassy in Beijing? The incident makes the government lose their trust in public, and for quite some time people only want to trust forecast from NOAA in stead of Beijing. If Chinese government hacked NOAA, it would be out of their intenti…

Don't Chinese citizens dream of making their country a two-party or multiparty democracy like US or India, respectively? This one-party autocratic rule will one day make people insane.

The vast majority of Chinese I meet here have zero interest in democracy, the few students I do meet who advocate it generally have very little idea of what it actually is.

They have no end of complaints about the government and are quite vocal about it- but huge divisions (to put it mildly) between provinces, as well as urban and rural people mean that the idea of letting "those people" have a say in how things are run is unthinkable.

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#68
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 is just as easy to pirate so the logic is not solid there.

I find it very hard to believe myself, because when you can obtain for free, why not go for the latest, shiniest version? But the reality is, most of Chinese computers are still stuck with XP, whatever the reason is.

One reason is chinese banks. Quite a few reportedly still run an IE6-only site that won't run properly in a modern browser.

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#69
post #57
post #30

As a Chinese I would prefer to believe our government is behind this. Do you know Beijing (or even the whole country) has a serious smog issue which was first uncovered by American embassy in Beijing? The incident makes the government lose their trust in public, and for quite some time people only want to trust forecast from NOAA in stead of Beijing. If Chinese government hacked NOAA, it would be out of their intenti…

Don't Chinese citizens dream of making their country a two-party or multiparty democracy like US or India, respectively? This one-party autocratic rule will one day make people insane.

We can talk about this all day without moving anywhere. Remember tanks in 1989 Tiananmen Square? From primary school people are brainwashed with CCP-is-holy thing. Many understand what is going on, but the attitude is "survival comes first". There are still plenty are too well brainwashed to know why life in China could be so hard. Yes, people can dream, but communism has its tradition, brutal tradition. People become realistic, you know, pay the bill and feed their children.

Re: Chinese hack U.S. Weather systems, satellite network

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There are plenty of articles in China about how an evil empire the US is, but mostly on how it misuses its military, financial and cultural power, how it instigates unrest in other countries, how its democracy is a fake one, etc. Seldom if any mentions US hacking.

I would love to read this. How do you know? Are you Chinese? I find it weird how in a world this connected, we still only get one POV.

Yes I am a Chinese.

The "one POV" thing is not about how interconnected the world is; it's about language barrier. An English site will always be dominated by people whose native language is English.

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