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China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

washingtonpost.com

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Re: China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

#11

Post by dwild »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #6
dmix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the real goal is HUMINT, getting access to a list of people with security clearance (including all of their personal information) meaning China can now easily target them individually. Blackmail or pay them off, convert them to informants/spies within the postal system. A postal system now flush with tons of data about every American citizen. It's much easier to have people embedded in the system, long term, extr…

>>>>> The data these people have access to is quite an important intelligence asset: My question would be why it took them so long to go after the postal service if they've thought it was such a high value target??

Everything is relative, including time. Nothing tell us how long they were trying to attack USPS or even how they were trying. This is just a case were they tried to do it one way, they succeeded and they got caught. There's probably multiple incident that public doesn't know or even that intelligence services doesn't know.

Re: China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

#12

Post by tantalor »

bicknergseng wrote: post #9

As a side note, I really hate article titles that use this kind of wildly inaccurate accusation. The nation of China did not breach the U.S. Postal Service, a Chinese government team did. Still inaccurate and vague, but there's a world of difference between the United States launching a drone strike and the CIA, an agent of the US, launching a drone strike. Edit: I've read more than enough articles where the agent or…

Are you trolling? What is the difference?

Re: China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

#13

Post by imgabe »

bicknergseng wrote: post #9

As a side note, I really hate article titles that use this kind of wildly inaccurate accusation. The nation of China did not breach the U.S. Postal Service, a Chinese government team did. Still inaccurate and vague, but there's a world of difference between the United States launching a drone strike and the CIA, an agent of the US, launching a drone strike. Edit: I've read more than enough articles where the agent or…

Functionally, what's the difference? Supposedly a Chinese government team would be acting on behalf of the nation of China and at their orders. I don't think anyone would interpret that as saying that every single Chinese citizen was involved.

Re: China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

#14

Post by ppereira »

bicknergseng wrote: post #9

As a side note, I really hate article titles that use this kind of wildly inaccurate accusation. The nation of China did not breach the U.S. Postal Service, a Chinese government team did. Still inaccurate and vague, but there's a world of difference between the United States launching a drone strike and the CIA, an agent of the US, launching a drone strike. Edit: I've read more than enough articles where the agent or…

I am not sure if I agree with your rationale. An agent of a government acts on behalf of his or her government. According to your reasoning, a nation cannot breach a system or wage war because it is an agent that does the hacking or a soldier that does the firing.

Nevertheless, I liked this excerpt by the NSA's general counsel:

> Still, “it’s perfectly appropriate for us to do everything we can to embarrass and punish the Chinese if they’re in our systems, whether or not we’re in theirs,” said former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart A. Baker. “It’s the case that the U.S. and Russia and other countries are much more cautious about getting caught because they think there are going to be consequences. It’s only the Chinese that think there are no consequences to getting caught.”

Re: China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

#15

Post by Sven7 »

higherpurpose wrote: post #3
semenko wrote: post #2

They buried the lede a bit -- since I doubt organized attackers are after the personal information of postal service employees: "It is also possible that the Chinese were after other types of data, analysts said. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service, at the request of law enforcement officials, takes pictures of all addressing information from envelopes and parcels.​" http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-…

So the US spying made Chinese spying easier (as expected). Wonderful.

My Grandmom's letters are pretty entertaining and I am happy they are getting wider distribution.

Re: China suspected of breaching U.S. Postal Service computer networks

#16

Post by mike_hearn »

Still, “it’s perfectly appropriate for us to do everything we can to embarrass and punish the Chinese if they’re in our systems, whether or not we’re in theirs,” said former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart A. Baker. “It’s the case that the U.S. and Russia and other countries are much more cautious about getting caught because they think there are going to be consequences. It’s only the Chinese that think there are no consequences to getting caught.”

Stewart Baker making himself look foolish again! Last time he popped up on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8559454

I really wonder how someone can come out with stuff like this. I doubt the PRC feels one iota of embarrassment for even one split second, and if senior US officials really bring up Chinese state sponsored hacking "every time they meet with their counterparts in Beijing" then the US Government is living up to its reputation as plumbing the depths of hypocrisy. They embarrass only themselves.

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