Chinese Military Hacked Into Pentagon 405
iFrated informs us of a successful penetration of US Defense Department computers by the Chinese military last June. From the article: "The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defense secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the [Chinese] People's Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a 'very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty' that the PLA was responsible." The PLA is also accused of breaking into German government computers, including a network in the office of the Chancellor.
Re:Windows to blame? (Score:3, Informative)
Why is Windows Shared Source more vulnerable to this type of attack than Linux and other Open Source things?
With thousands of eyes that have many varying goals, any security vulnerability in an "open" sourced product would be reported to the correct people many times by many different users.
Closed source projects on the other hand have very specific sets of eyes on them, with very specific goals. If a vulnerability was found it would be less likely to be reported.
that's my take on it anyway.
Re:Wire up the IDS (Score:3, Informative)
Life would have been so much better if any spying attempt by the USSR/USA on the USA/USSR had resulted in the nukes being launched. Would have made the cold war a lot shorter anyway...
Re:Wire up the IDS (Score:3, Informative)
Why do you think America is on good terms with Communist China--even bringing them into the WTO--while we have an embargo on Communist Cuba? Because China doesn't execute people and steal their organs? Or because China doesn't kill religious practitioners?
Be realistic. That Tom Clancy novel you read isn't accurate anymore. How are you going to fight against the guy who's cutting you checks to fight Iraq?
NSAKEY (Score:2, Informative)
de-Baathification (Score:2, Informative)
Iraq however is a different case. The big mistake in Iraq was the Rumsfeld/Bush position that US forces "dont do nation- building". What did they expect? That they would invade Iraq, everybody would dance in the streets, be really grateful and that reconstruction would happen by it self while they watched? The USA already sucessfully handled such a situation once before, the reconstruction of Germany after WWII, many of the lessons of that effort were forgotten in Iraq. Starting with the fact that disbanding the national army and police is just about the worst single thing you can do closely followed on the dumb ideas scale by failing to (rapidly) reconstruct even basic facilities like water supply, sewage disposal and electricity. All this was handled in Germany post 1945 in a pretty no-nonsense manner. De nazified soldiers and police officers were recruited for the re-organized police force, the Infrastructure was rebuilt with the help of US engineers and local people which often involved rebuilding local industries and experienced civilian administrators that passed de-nazification were quickly put to work running much of this effort under US supervision. As it was the de-Baathification of Iraq was far to stringent and it kept important professionals like teachers, doctors, engineers and experienced military officers out of circulation until the whole process was finally rationalized in 2004 which was far to late.
Re:Carte Blanche (Score:4, Informative)
Westerners like rice more chewy, so for the same rice, it is put into a big pot of hot water and the rice is cooked like sphagetti.
China denies Pentagon cyber raid (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Sanctions (Score:4, Informative)
How does this idiocy get modded up, when even a cursory examination [worldbank.org] (warning: .pdf) shows that China has a GDP of 2.6B, compared to 2.9 for Germany, 4.3 for Japan, and 13 for the U.S.
With a larger GDP, they will be able to outspend us militarily, without causing any strain on their economy.
We spend [globalsecurity.org] about $466B, the rest of the world combined spends about $500B, and China $65B. Granted, China's PPP means they get more stuff for their $65B, but they still spend far, far less than we do.
The parent post is so wrong that it should be modded down.