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China's Cyberwar Against India 227

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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China's Cyberwar Against India

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  • by torqer ( 538711 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @08:45AM (#23299316)
    Cyberwaar, what is it good foor?
  • Anyone know what the "US spy incident" is that is mentioned at the end of the article?
  • by AltGrendel ( 175092 ) <ag-slashdot&exit0,us> on Monday May 05, 2008 @08:46AM (#23299324) Homepage
    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.
    • by metlin ( 258108 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @08:59AM (#23299462) Journal
      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.
    • by Lally Singh ( 3427 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @09:43AM (#23299860) Journal
      Yeah but the smarties probably have better jobs than government work :-)
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by PacoTaco ( 577292 )
      Yes, but who do they call for tech support?
  • 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 @09:38AM (#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)?
      • by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
        Another option is the possibility of an independent Chinese hacker attack. There is 4 times USA population there and thanks to the propaganda, the government is widely supported in the population.
      • by h4rm0ny ( 722443 )

        Not necessarily. Possibly China wants to demonstrate its power.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        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?
    • Indeed, truth is the first casualty in any war, cyber or otherwise.
  • 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
    • Not trolling, but...isn't the IT support capability of India as basic as it is widespread? I may be totally wrong, but my secondhand knowledge of IT support calls that went to India includes them being sent to higher level support centers in the US when questions got complicated.
    • More importantly how are they going to re-license their windows key if the call centre is down?
  • BOTS? Get a CLUE! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @08:58AM (#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.

  • 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 @11:30AM (#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...
      • Newsflash to USA: the world does not revolve around you.

        Please provide some links to back up this assertion.

        Until then, wake up and smell the world revolving around us.
    • by Tom ( 822 )
      And that would be?

      What's stored in outsourced datacenters is mostly customer data. You know, names, addresses, credit card numbers, social security numbers - the stuff you can find for sale in the underground for a few cents.

      For the valuable data, like technology, the chinese have developed a much better way to get at it - cooperatives between chinese companies and western companies who absolutely want to produce in or sell to China. You know, you can't just open a factory in China. You have to cooperate wi
  • by harry666t ( 1062422 ) <harry666tNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday May 05, 2008 @09:10AM (#23299546)
    ...ban Chinese IPs on their routers?
    • by Intron ( 870560 )
      If I did that, it would cut about 50% of my spam load as well. Unfortunately, we have customers in .cn
  • It may help India reject the Swiss Cheese of Microsoft products in favour of a more solid infrastructure.
    • Actually the government has moved away from Windows to Linux.
      Only thing is while the lower government depts have moved to linux, the higher functionaries are too stupid to understand anything but windows.
      So the chain is weakest where it should be strongest.
  • by hnjjz ( 696917 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @09:24AM (#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.
    • Americans would not spew out spam that said to increase your size, that you have to eat deer or tiger penis. So, nope, not ours.

      Nor would we spew out spam that says

      Want to increase your size? Da, of course your girlfriends wants you to. You must bath in Lake Bakal for that
      So again not ours.
      No, we would spit spam that says that you must buy from McDonalds or Burger King. Oh Damn, that is our spam.
  • 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.
    • They know full well they're on their way to being the next super power and everyone relies on them for pretty much everything.

      As China modernizes, workers wages having been coming up.
      Workers rights, environmental protections, etc are now coming into play, further driving up costs.

      Businesses are starting to leave China and are moving to other Asian countries where wages & costs are lower.

      Here's one example [alibaba.com] and there are plenty more like it.

  • AFAIR Estonia ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hany ( 3601 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @09:44AM (#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 @09:51AM (#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)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 )
      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 @09:55AM (#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
    • Bloody vocabulary terrorists.

    • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      Not everyone who commits a crime or act of aggression is a fucking terrorist.

      Quite correct. That term should be reserved for rapists.

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Makes me feel we are just as programmed as many of the chinese.
      Probably less. Most chinese probably know that their government is oppressing them, censoring their media and running surveilance on its own population. Most americans still think their government may be incompetent, but at least it's not evil.
    • "Vehicular terrorist" no. But if you put these [trucknutz.com] on your truck, I'd consider your a testicular terrorist.

  • Speculative article (Score:4, Informative)

    by YeeHaW_Jelte ( 451855 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @10:22AM (#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.
  • Can we presume that the Western/democratic world, which owns most of the international backbone, has in place the option of simply dropping all of China from the Internet in the case of a crisis?

    Sure, they have agents abroad who could trigger a botnet. Still, shouldn't any concerted use of the Internet in warfare be met by a total severance of the nation making that use from the Internet, not just in the short term, but forever?
    • We cut the lines. The Chinese government tells its people how we are attempting yet again to stop the success of China because we're all racist bastards. 5 hours later, we're seeing the missile launches and India (along with all other neighboring countries) is wondering how these millions of Chinese people suddenly got into their country.
      As much as I'd like to cut the bastards off too, it would affect world economy in a drastic manner and provide the Chinese government with a really good excuse to start br
    • by Phrogman ( 80473 )
      A fine idea until you consider the fact that the hypothetical malevolent Chinese botnet can be easily controlled from a cybercafe in Australia, or Austria, or even the US. The bots are out here in the west too, not all behind Chinese government firewalls inside the country.
  • by XchristX ( 839963 ) on Monday May 05, 2008 @04:19PM (#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.

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