Chinese Hackers As International Threats

Image by CrazyCleaner

Hacking has become as critical to all things internet. A few days ago while searching around for some information,  I actually ran into a (for a fee) hacking workshop open to the public. The image above was borrowed from a webpage that appears to specialize in hacking know-how and instruction. 

From American Stuxnet  and Flame virus to attack against Iran’s Nuclear program (cyber warfare), to the more common forms of hacking to secure information not authorized for public dissemination. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge and mention another form of hacking, we call ‘irritation intrusions’ or annoyance attacks.  The latter are forms of intrusions Anonymous hackivist have used to attack and penetrate the white supremacist group Operation Bliztkrieg website, and to attack the American Third Position (A3P supremacist group) website.  Of course, you know of Anonymous hacking of the Westboro Baptist Church and hacking activities that led to arrest in the Stubenville Ohio rape case. The Ohio case was far from annoyance on intrusion hacking. Anonymous commented they accomplished their work without violation of intellectual property laws.

We follow Anonymous activism.  We do so consistently as is evident by the widget at the bottom of this page. More often than not we applaud much of their vigilantism.  We do not, however, support all Anonymous hacking just as we do not support all hacking in general. 

International hacking by governments (US and other governments) goes far beyond vigilantism and aggravation. Stuxnet and Flame are reported to be part of the US cyber arsenal.  Stuxnet, for the uninformed like me, appear more as penetration ‘worms’ designed to inflict pre-programmed damage. The Chinese appear to have as active a cyber “Army” as any nation. We can only hope Chinese hacking specialist have equals across the globe; especially in the Untied States. Moreover, we hope the US has more competent experts maintaining cyber security as a blanket across US defense networks.  

The following NPR broadcast focuses on the effectiveness of China’s use cyber specialist to hack into Corporate systems in the United States.  It should be noted the NPR guest states the information hacked by the Chinese is available via public sources.
_______________________
Foreign Policy Blog  (2011)

Trading With The Enemy: Sino-American Cyber-Espionage
by FPB Contributor  |  on April 18th, 2011 

China has over 400 million internet users, more than any other nation.  This exponentially increasing population of Chinese netizens entering the global  internet community has not come without serious negative externality.   Over the past decade, there has been a marked increase in cyber-espionage and hacking coming from Mainland China.  Espionage is not new, even between close allies such as the United States and Israel, but the unusually high frequency and intensity of  Chinese cyber-spying from both state and non-state actors is causing great concern.

Besides the traditional attacks on security institutions, Chinese hackers have placed a new focus on private business.  For example, over the last several months network, security experts have noticed that Facebook internet traffic has been purposely routed through China.“It’s real. It is happening. It can’t be described as an ‘accident’ anymore,” Joffe [Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at DNS (Domain Name System) registry Neustar], who observed similar traffic snafus involving China last year, said in an e-mail to CNET today.Although Beijing is notorious for draconian internet censorship, having invested inordinate resources in a 30-50,000 man-strong  internet shield, known as the Golden Shield (金盾工程:jīndùn gōngchéng), the new focus is on offensive international attacks and data gathering raids.  In the case of Facebook, analyst are concerned that China is spying on foreign users in order to lift session ID information, personal information, e-mails, photos, chat conversations, all in order to  lift propitiatory information, as well as monitor human rights activism.

______________________

Towards the latter part of this week I caught a morning segment on NPR.  Renee Montagne hosted a segment about a ‘surge’ in Chinese  with Nicole Perlroth of  the New York Times.    The New York times has reported consistent hacking via the Chinese Army over the past four months. As the report was broadcast on NPR, We are embedding an audio only segment (Approx. 4 minutes). The report is truly worth the time and the listen.

‘New York Times’ Accuses China Of Being Behind Hacking

January 31, 2013 4:00 AM

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

4 min 4 sec

Chinese computer hackers have been infiltrating the computer systems of infiltrating the computer systems of The New York Times for the last four months, according to the paper. Renee Montagne talks to Nicole Perlroth, a Times reporter who covers cyber security.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

In the past two days on this program, we’ve looked into how the Chinese government uses modern technology to monitor its population, to a point where it could be called a surveillance state. Now there’s some evidence that surveillance extends well beyond China’s borders. The New York Times says that for the past four months, its computer system has been systematically hacked, and it is accusing the Chinese government of being behind it. The New York Times says the hacking was tied into the paper’s investigation into how the family of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao accumulated billions of dollars in business deals. Nicole Perlroth reports on cyber-security for the New York Times, including on this particular story, and she joined on the line. Good morning.

Read More  

During a same day broadcast, Neal Cohan also explored Chinese hacking against American interest. Unfortunately, the Cohan segment is over 12 minutes long. The link embed is long, but relevant and revealing.

For those who find the surge in Chinese State cyber hacking an intriguing topic, you can find linked here a related NPR story from December 2010.

We expressed a hope earlier in this screed  The hope relates to national security. US experts have adequate counter measures against such intrusions (attacks) from foreign governments. Corporate cyber attacks are becoming somewhat common place.   Hardly a week goes by without seeing and reading an article about someone or some entity being hacked.  

Is there a prospect the Chinese can and do penetrate US defense systems which far exceed  the seriousness of hacking ordered to disrupt reporting of Chinese government avarice? While cloaked in secrecy, the non-informed should wonder if the US defense (military and non-military) community have comparable capability   Does the US have any alliance with non-military hacking specialist who can be, or are being, mobilized to counter increasing cyber attacks from foreign governments? While not one Anonymous group will admit to alignment with the US government, I wonder if the group could be an ally when cyber warfare becomes a deadly threat to the United States.

A more poignant questions, does the wherewithal and inclinations of international hacktivist included intrusions into military systems?

Additional Information sources:
I.   NPR (a series of article links)
II.  NPR (June 2011 Chinese attack Google)

III. NPR (December 2010 – A Week in Chinese Hacking)

Trust The US Government? (John Liming Author)

Cross posted from The Liberal Times Dot Com

Trust The Government Or Not!

Posted on February 3, 2013 by John Liming

“In God We Trust” appears on our coins so that must be some kind of testament to the kind of government we have here in the United States.

I understand that there are people who, for reasons of their own, are suspicious of government and there are some who seem to be highly paranoid that government is going to turn into some all-consuming monster someday and consume their freedoms and themselves just because ( as many of them have noted) “Other governments have gone rogue over the years and there is nothing to prevent our own from doing the same thing . . . so stock up on those guns, folks!”

My entire heritage has trusted the government and many of my family have trusted it enough over the years that we have stayed here in The Land of the Free of our own free will, we have raised families and made a living and many of us have even worn the uniform of the country that has the “Pledge of Allegiance.”

That “Pledge of Allegiance  is good enough evidence for me that I can trust my government.  My government has never failed to protect me from enemies who might have invasion on their minds and I have fared pretty well under this government of the United States.

I have always risen to relative peace and calm here in the States and with the exception of the Civil War and a few other disturbances along the way of History, we have had it pretty damned good as Americans and I don’t have anything to really complain about right now either.

I don’t know what demons drive the government haters among us but I do suspect that if they actually had to live under one of those tyrannical regimes they are always complaining about ( and there are plenty of them alive and well on the face of this planet…. they have their pick if they want to try one out and see how much different it would be than America is . . .)  they just might change their tune a little.

I am a happy camper and instead of damning America like a lot of the nut wads on the far right fringe, I am going to continue singing, “God Bless America!”

Posted by John Liming

Also find John Liming at Oldliberalgrump.blogspot dot com