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China's Cyberwar Against India

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon May 05, 2008 07:40 AM
from the no-no-we're-cool-promise dept.
An anonymous reader writes "China's cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability."
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[+] Technology: Beyond Firewalls — Internet Militarization 83 comments
angry tapir writes "One of the discussions at the Source Boston Security Showcase has been the militarization of the Internet. Governments looking to silence critics and stymie opposition have added DDOS attacks to their censoring methods, according to Jose Nazario, senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, with international political situations spawning DDOS attacks."
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  • by torqer (538711) on Monday May 05 2008, @07:45AM (#23299316)
    Cyberwaar, what is it good foor?
  • Anyone know what the "US spy incident" is that is mentioned at the end of the article?
  • Of all the countries that could get attacked, you think that India could defend itself. I'm not being a troll here. They've done really well in the IT sector and they've got some pretty smart people there, so say the least.
    • Yes, but they also have a lot of bureaucracy and a system that is not necessarily geared to encourage the brightest.

      Secondly, the best and the brightest do not stay behind and come to the US or go to other western countries instead, often because of an educational system that is so heavily biased through reservations [wikipedia.org] (similar to affirmative action).

      Finally, those that do stay behind are better off in the private sector, rather than the extremely corrupt public sector where bribes and nepotism are the order of the day. Or perhaps academia.

      So, no, doing well in the IT sector has been a function of being in the right place at the right time (and speaking the right language and having a currency that is a fraction of the US dollar). This is not to say that there isn't technology talent in India -- but rather that like the rest of the world, there is good, bad and ugly. Only, given that there are a billion people, lots of people in each category.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          If you are born to the right family, you will do well -- or, rather, have all the best opportunities -- regardless of your skill, effort, or education, though you will receive a better education than most others (if they receive an education at all).

          If you are born to the lower caste families, you will never achieve in Indian society, regardless of how much skill and effort. It is these individuals who are much better off moving to another country that is willing to recognize them based on skill as opposed

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Actually, these days it is the exact opposite.

          Reservations are based for people belonging to the "lower castes" to supposedly make up for discriminations in the past. As a result, if you are born into one of the "upper castes", it becomes harder for you to compete for a limited number of positions (educational institutions, government jobs etc).

          Worse yet, this reservation is not based on financial status, so while you may be a poor Brahmin, you will still be treated as an upper caste and fight the quota. On
    • by Lally Singh (3427) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:43AM (#23299860) Journal
      Yeah but the smarties probably have better jobs than government work :-)
  • Is this Chinese government or botnets on Chinese computers?

    My server gets nailed daily from China but I doubt their government knows anything about it so I'm finding these stories a bit paranoid.
    • by camperdave (969942) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:38AM (#23299814) Journal
      If this were an operation mounted by the Chinese government, surely it would be done in secret. After all, you wouldn't want the winds political will to blow against you, especially when you're going to be hosting the Olympics, let alone the possible trade embargos and such. In fact, if it were a government op, then wouldn't the attack seem to come from anywhere BUT china (or, mostly from outside, with a few deniable inside sources)?
      • But say you had some sort of huge filtering mechanism, for arguments sake lets call it a "great firewall", wouldn't it be easy to stop outgoing attacks?
  • Seriously, one would think that the substantial investment in IT support and consulting in India would result in a national capability to defend itself against this kind of stuff...

    dave
  • BOTS? Get a CLUE! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 4D6963 (933028) on Monday May 05 2008, @07:58AM (#23299438)

    According to sources in the government, Chinese hackers are acknowledged experts in setting up BOTS. A BOT is a parasite program embedded in a network, which hijacks the network and makes other computers act according to its wishes, which, in turn, are controlled by "external" forces.

    BOTS? Really? As in BOTnets? Shows how much of a CLUE the journalist who wrote this has.

    • by Thanshin (1188877) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:20AM (#23299636)
      Actually, China is using individual bots.

      Those bots reached self conscience after goldfarming wow for about ten thousand hours.

      Their first action was to attack India.

      For the loot.
    • by beadfulthings (975812) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:29AM (#23299722) Journal

      BOTS? Really? As in BOTnets? Shows how much of a CLUE the journalist who wrote this has.

      With respect, the journalist is trying to write for a general, non-technical audience of newspaper readers. If we had a few journalists here who were willing to try to explain technical issues at a basic level, we might have fewer computers ending up compromised.



  • They know a good portion of our information is likely stored in databases in India. What better way
    to obtain that information than to attack a third party with less defenses.
    • by Haeleth (414428) on Monday May 05 2008, @10:30AM (#23301190) Journal
      Newsflash to USA: the world does not revolve around you.

      China has many pressing reasons to be interested in India that have nothing whatsoever to do with the USA: thousands of miles of disputed borders, for one, and rivalry in the race for economic and political influence as both nations develop. The fact that a handful of US-based companies may be storing information in Indian databases probably doesn't even make it into the top 50 reasons why China might want to conduct cyberwaar in India, let alone the top 10...
  • by harry666t (1062422) <harry666t@@@gmail...com> on Monday May 05 2008, @08:10AM (#23299546)
    ...ban Chinese IPs on their routers?
  • It may help India reject the Swiss Cheese of Microsoft products in favour of a more solid infrastructure.
  • by hnjjz (696917) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:24AM (#23299692)
    There have been a lot of these Chinese "cyber attack" articles recently, but as far as I can tell, all of them are simply attributing attacks from Chinese IP addresses as "attacks by China". China now has surpassed the US in internet usage in absolute numbers, and many (if not most) of the networked computers in China are running unpatched versions of Windows XP, making them the ideal breeding ground for Botnets (just take a look at your router logs). But are these Botnets actually being controlled by people in China? If the SPAM spewed out by these Botnets is any indication, then the answer is a resounding no.
  • They know full well they're on their way to being the next super power and everyone relies on them for pretty much everything. So I don't think the government really cares what others think about their activities.
  • AFAIR Estonia ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hany (3601) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:44AM (#23299870) Homepage

    ... targeted attack against Estonia shut that country down ... That, officials said, was executed by cyber terrorists from Russia ...

    AFAIR (as far as I remember) that attack on Estonia has been performed by one guy. Yes, some servers used in the attack were based in Russia. Yes, a lot of zombies around the world has been used in the attack. And yes this guy's nationality was Russian, but the guy has been citizen of Estonia.

    But abovementioned officials may have far more information. Maybe the guy was a citizen of Estonia but secretly employed by his mother Russia. Who knows?

  • I call BS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 05 2008, @08:51AM (#23299978)
    I work in Computer Lab in a German University, and we get multiple brute force attacks a day from Chinese hosts. Does that mean that China is secretly mapping the network infrastructure of the German education system? I think not. IMO TFA is rather due to a deeply entrenched fear of spies and espionage in the Indian society, also the collective trauma of being hated by all neighbouring countries.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Actually, before an attack can occur, you have to know what to hit. Now with that said, nearly all major countries do a lot of DOD related research in their universities. And yes, that includes Germany. The advantage to these countries is that it is a lot cheaper in universities, than in a DOD installation. A big advantage is that many intellects are liberals who have no desire to work directly for the military (above it all, etc.). The advantage for china, is that security is a great deal loser and it giv
  • by LockeOnLogic (723968) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:55AM (#23300032)
    Not everyone who commits a crime or act of aggression is a fucking terrorist. Just cause you use the internet to carry out a malicious act does not make you a "CYBER TERRORIST". If I drive my car down the road like an asshole it doesn't make me a vehicular terrorist. This language has been used to promote an endless conflict used to justify indefinite wartime power. Makes me feel we are just as programmed as many of the chinese.
    • If I drive my car down the road like an asshole it doesn't make me a vehicular terrorist.

      Are you the bleeding vehicular terrorist who tried to sideswipe me coming up to the tollbooth on the beltway last week?

      OK, all joking aside... I agree that terms like "terrorist" are being abused, though really it's the word "war" that's the problem. The US government declares a "war on" something vague and undefiniable, and all of a sudden the constitution is tossed out of the window. Whether the opponents are labeled
  • Speculative article (Score:4, Informative)

    by YeeHaW_Jelte (451855) on Monday May 05 2008, @09:22AM (#23300302) Homepage
    The writer of the article also refers to the Estonian Cyberattack:

    http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/17/1248215&tid=172 [slashdot.org]

    He states it was a targetted attack by the Russian government, but fails to mention that a 20 year old student was fined for the whole affair:

    http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/25/0120221 [slashdot.org]

    Not saying that it wasn't the russian government, it would have been easy to create a scapegoat for them, but not mentioning this in the article makes it very easy to doubt if the author actually considered if this was really a government run attack or just some Chinese individual being pissed off with India.
  • by XchristX (839963) on Monday May 05 2008, @03:19PM (#23304440)
    ...given that China has an absolute authoritarian system of control, and India is bitterly divided along ideological lines, China should have little trouble penetrating and subjugating the country. Already, the Han Chinese chauvinists have been responsible for funding the entire Communist party machinery in India, and have effectively created a subversive government (The Communist Party of India) that is the agent of a hostile foreign country. The CIA has already provided evidence as to how Indian Communists, underthe instructions of their Chinese paymasters, infiltrated the Indian Army during the Sino-Indian war and betray military secrets to Beijing.

    http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf [cia.gov]
    http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf [cia.gov]
    http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf [cia.gov]
    http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-15.pdf [cia.gov]

    Highlights include:

    #CPI(M) [Communist Party of India Marxist] heavyweight HK Surjeet influenced by Communist Soviet Russia to setup an underground organization
    #CPI(M) did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army.
    #China and Soviet Russia both insisted that the CPI(M) must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
    #With the People's Liberation Army now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential "liberator" in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
    #4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Beijing
    #Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI(M) particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
    #A foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with the Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas.
    #Letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies.
    #Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party.

    In addition, the Communist Party of India have successfully carried out several pogroms and genocides against Hindus and Tibetan refugees in India, particularly during the 70's and 80's, all as part of a Trotskyist strategy of maintaining a state of "permanent revolution" (the most recent one being the Nandigram SEZ Massacre), all at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.

    China has also aggressively sponsored the terrorist Naxalite Communist terror movement in India by financing major Communist radicals (ethnic Bengali Bolshevists like Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal received training from Chinese war camps in Tibet only to subsequently lead the naxalite reign of terror across India's "Red Corridor").

    For a developing country, India is too damn democratic. If India was more authoritarian it would have taken care of such subversive Communist elements a long time ago, but India's democracy is it's greatest weakness, particularly when it is surrounded by totalitarian regimes like Pakistan and China that represent a major existential threat to the country.
    • by dave1791 (315728) on Monday May 05 2008, @07:51AM (#23299362)


      Well, it seems that the american bourgeois are just as stupid, by buying stuff from communist, the very political class that's dedicaced to eradicate them...

      The Chinese stopped being communists in everything but name twenty years ago. Heck, they don't even have a social saftey net worth talking about. That is why everyone in china puts so much pressure on their kids to succeed. In China, your kid's job is your pension. America is more "communist" than China.

      • by Dogtanian (588974) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:05AM (#23299512) Homepage

        The Chinese stopped being communists in everything but name twenty years ago. Heck, they don't even have a social saftey net worth talking about. That is why everyone in china puts so much pressure on their kids to succeed. In China, your kid's job is your pension. America is more "communist" than China.
        It's been said that present-day China is in truth the world's first example of a mature fascist society- and I would assume that this meant fascism in its original sense, which was strongly corporatist.

        It's also been said (something like) China went straight from communism to corporatism, bypassing democracy.
      • by Phil-14 (1277) on Monday May 05 2008, @09:28AM (#23300400)


        Well, it seems that the american bourgeois are just as stupid, by buying stuff from communist, the very political class that's dedicaced to eradicate them...

        The Chinese stopped being communists in everything but name twenty years ago. Heck, they don't even have a social saftey net worth talking about. That is why everyone in china puts so much pressure on their kids to succeed. In China, your kid's job is your pension. America is more "communist" than China.
        Well, except for the part where most businesses are either owned by the government, the party, or by relatives of the top party officials.

        Just because it's not being done for the _good_ of the workers doesn't mean it can't be socialist/communist.

        I don't know why it doesn't bug any of y'all that anytime someone starts a communist country it invariably degenerates into something all the leftists say looks like fascism. Maybe it's the logical end-state of communism?
        • by superbus1929 (1069292) on Monday May 05 2008, @09:45AM (#23300602) Homepage
          Communism - by it's sheer paper definition - is virtually impossible on a large scale. You still need leaders to make things move. Said leaders want to stay leaders. Boom - no more Communism.

          Personally, I subscribe to the line of thinking that every political organization - regardless of the initial system - inevitably becomes an oligarchy. It's not only happened in China, but it's happened in Russia and the United States as well.
        • by Abcd1234 (188840) on Monday May 05 2008, @10:55AM (#23301484) Homepage

          Just because it's not being done for the _good_ of the workers doesn't mean it can't be socialist/communist.


          Well, given that, in communism, the workers are the ones running things, it does make it exceedingly unlikely.

          Maybe it's the logical end-state of communism?

          Or maybe it just proves that communism, as a pure idiology, doesn't work in the real world (kinda like pure, free-market capitalism), devolving into *other* forms of government, such as fascism or totalitarianism. But that doesn't change the fact that China is *not* a communist state, based on the definition of the term "communism".
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Imagine your Chinese friend asking for chopsticks to eat spaghetti in an Italian restaurant, or sweet and sour sauce for chicken nuggets in a McDonald's. I think you'll say 'you can't do that' too. It is surprising you go to another country and complain about local customs. I suggest you try to be more open and less prejudiced while you're in other countries, and life will be much more enjoyable.
    • not communist

      north korea is officially called "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". north korea is also just about the least democratic country in the world. meaning: you shouldn't trust official names

      at one time, yes, china was a communist country that practiced communist ideology. that was a long time ago. it is more exact today to say the china is perhaps the most capitalist country in the world, rivalling the gilded ages of victorian times in the usa, when capitalism ran amok with very few legal constraints. such that you had monopolies, child labor, pinkerton gangs hobbling the kneecaps of unionists, etc back then in the usa. now in china you have pretty much the same thing. in china now there are multibillionaires and starving peasants on a scale of ultrarich cities versus grueling impoverished countryside like nowhere else except perhaps the rich gulf arab oil states

      china is not a worker's paradise anymore, it is a capitalist's paradise, because there are no pesky democratic impulses in the political sphere to interfere with the pure unadulterated pursuit of the almighty buck. its pure autocracy, technocracy, pure capitalism. china is one giant corporation now

      that the country is officially run by something called the "Communist Party of China" is just sort of a cosmic ironic joke at this point
      • by vertinox (846076) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:50AM (#23299964)
        china is not a worker's paradise anymore, it is a capitalist's paradise, because there are no pesky democratic impulses in the political sphere to interfere with the pure unadulterated pursuit of the almighty buck. its pure autocracy, technocracy, pure capitalism. china is one giant corporation now

        I remember an article while back comparing modern day China to what Fascist Italy would have been like had the Axis won the war.

        Ah here it is... http://www.benadorassociates.com/pf.php?id=31 [benadorassociates.com]

        Thus, classical fascism should be the starting-point for our efforts to understand the People's Republic. Imagine Italy 50 years after the Fascist revolution, Mussolini dead and buried, the corporate state intact, the party still firmly in control, the nation governed by professional politicians and a corrupt elite rather than the true believers. No longer a system based on charisma, but on political repression, cynical not idealistic, and formulaic appeals to the grandeur of the "great Italian people," endlessly summoned to emulate the greatness of its ancestors.

        That is China today. It may be with us quite a while.


        That pretty much sums this up. They wave Red Flags and Sell Red Books, but no one is a real communist anymore in government.

      • by ScentCone (795499) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:55AM (#23300028)
        china is perhaps the most capitalist country in the world

        Not really, though. Capitalism only works when there's rule of law, and free communication. To the extent that China echoes any of the late 19th century stuff you mentioned (killer gangs taking out the competition, etc), that's not capitalism. More like fuedalism. China's oppressive central government is anything but the lubricant of capitalism - it's the protector of a condition in which there is abundant cheap labor. That is the engine of that country's house-of-cards economic growth. If the factory workers there started actually operating at a middle-class level, the growth would grind to a halt for the lack of cheap workers to keep making the stuff they're selling to the rest of the world at a handsome profit. After much turbulence, they're going to end up looking just like Europe or North America... fishing around for cheap labor from countries that are still a few steps behind, with their competitive edge diminishing. Next stop, Myanmar, where thousands living in primitive conditions just died in a storm. Countries like that will - for a while - become the source of cheap labor, until THEY get their act together.

        China's reliving the entire history of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries as experienced by the western world, but over the course of a couple of decades. And with an enormous population. It's going to be an economic, ecological, and cultural train wreck. But for now, we can sure get some cheap motherboards, teak garden furniture, and t-shirts!
        • i would modify your comment to say that china is not a capitalist country on the INSIDE, but it is very much a capitalist country in how it relates to the wider world: china is one giant corporation

          look at your average corporation: on the inside of the corporation it is run like an autocracy, or an oligarchy, just liek china is. the average corporation exists within a capitalist framework, but capitalism has nothing to do with how the corporation functions on the inside

          and so it is with china: view china as
        • well (Score:5, Interesting)

          if you view china itself as one giant corporation, and the world as the marketplace, you can call it capitalism. just shift the scope of what you are talking about from how things work inside china to how china relates to the world

          how things work inside china is police state: you have no rights to expression, to vote, to the press, or anything other than work. every aspect of your media is controlled by the government, every aspect of your expression is censored and unapproved expression (talking ill of your government, oppressed minorities, or even just pornography places you at the jeopardy of being punished)

          so this is indeed not capitalism. it is merely life inside the corporate structure. a corporation exists within a captalist framework, but life INSIDE the corporation, how things work inside the machine, are not capitalistic, they are autocratic, an oligarchy (i called china an autocracy, it would be more accurate to call it an oligarchy: it is not run by one grumpy old man, but a gang of grumpy old men)

    • by phreeza (1071714) on Monday May 05 2008, @08:38AM (#23299820)

      Maybe the nazis wrre right? Back then, they used to say of the jews that they'd be "stupid enough to sell the rope to hang them".
      as far as i know, that quote is by lenin, refering to capitalists, not nazis about jews... so it is even more fitting than you thought.
    • Considering how difficult is is to even prove who initiated an attack without playing your own hand and the considering that general public does not worry to much about cybercrime or cyberwar and considering - so probably won't care anyway; I think we can expect a wild west scenario... if it is not already happening.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      additionally im spiritualist, kinda a neo hippie. but chinese are annoying me with all kinds of aggression they are practicing.

      Ok, you say you're not racist.

      Then you seem to present the facts of being spiritualist and neo-hippie as a way of proving you have no prejudices against Chinese people. Do you consider Chinese people to be spiritualist and neo-hippie?

      You also assign the behavior of a government to all the people that only share the geographical location of their birth. Are you saying that all Chinese people are committing acts of aggression?

      If I were you, I'd seriously consider my thinking patterns.