The Secret China-U.S. Hacking War?

bored-at-IETF-ntp-session writes "In an article at eWeek Larry Seltzer examines the supposed hacking war between the US and China. He surmises 'Even if you can't prove that the government was involved ... it still bears some responsibility'. He quotes Gadi Evron who advised the Estonians during the Russian attacks. 'I can confirm targeted attacks with sophisticated technologies have been launched against obvious enemies of China ... Who is behind these attacks can't be easily said, but it can be an American cyber-criminal, a Nigerian spammer or the Chinese themselves.' Seltzer concluded 'It's just another espionage tool, and no more or less moral than others we've used in the past.'" This a subject we've also previously discussed.

Russian attacks?

[matt4077]

It should be noted (search for it if you don't believe me) that these so-called russian attacks on estonia were actually done by an estonian teenager. Kind of makes me doubt that expert's expertness.

Re:Not suprised

[AaronW]

I saw the same thing in my home firewall logs. One IP address in China filled 75% of the logs. Out of curiosity I googled that address and came up with a PDF file from the Department of Homeland Security from two years earlier listing the same IP address.

It's well known that China has been spying on us since we periodically catch them and they make the news. It's probably safe to say that a lot of it is quietly supported by the Chinese government or at least they turn a blind eye to it. Much of the espionage on the US government is probably directly from the Chinese government. It's also well known that they break into US companies as well to steal technology and oftentimes the government turns a blind eye to companies infringing on patents.

You can get lots of information on this just by typing chinese espionage [google.com] in Google.

Re:I'm thinking...

[Bagheera]

• Script kiddie idiots carrying out the attacks
• Self-promoting "security experts" making up far-fetched theories about "cyberwarfare" to get press coverage

Being in InfoSec where I deal with this stuff a lot, I'd say you're over 99% right on the first part. And about 80% right on the second.

The organization I work for sees a huge number of simple scans and lame intrusion attempts on a daily basis. A handful appear to be more sophisticated, and are sourced from a number of interesting locations: Mostly compromised machines acting as proxies.

As for the self promotion, you're right for many of them. They have a Publish or Perish attitude, especially if they're consultants. Which means we see papers and interviews that often blow things way out of proportion. Though it doesn't mean there isn't at least a grain of truth in the warnings.

Are the Chinese attacking the US over the Internet? Yeah, so? Stay tuned, Film at 11.

Cheers

Re:China ... is evil ...

[qazsedcft]

Nice speech, but please look at the facts first. Reality check:

• The US debt is currently almost 9.4 TRILLION dollars. The biggest debt of any government in the history of the world, adjusted for inflation. Even the Romans had a better financial situation and historians agree that the Roman empire fell largely because it went broke.
• It's not like the trend is reversing either. The US government has declared a deficit of 175.6 billion dollars just for the month of February. The largest single month deficit ever.
• Even with the cheap dollar, the trade deficit continues to increase (0.6% larger in January).
• Just looking at inflation rates is silly and ignoring the other side of the equation. Looking at REAL growth rate (growth minus inflation) we see that the US has a growth rate of about 3% per year, while China has a growth rate of over 10% per year. This means that EVEN AFTER INFLATION the Chinese still grow richer every year.
• The US economy is already highly developed so that growth can only be achieved through technological advances. China is still developing so it can achieve substantially larger growth than the US by investing in infrastructure. China is only catching up to the rest of the world and still has plenty of growth potential left. The Chinese government knows this very well and that's exactly what they are doing.
• Rural people loosing their homes is not a concern for the Chinese government. Those people will just move to the cities and that's exactly what the government wants. The rate of rural-urban migration is so high that the urban population is predicted to surpass the rural population within the next 5 years.
• Unemployment is mostly a problem in rural areas. Bring those people to the cities so they can work and the problem is solved!

There are many, many more points that I could bring up (Chinese trade, investments, the real value of the yuan, etc) but I don't have the time to find all the data at this moment.

It's nice to find comfort in thinking that the situation is just temporary, but let's face it - the golden age of the USA has ended. The US is on the decline while other parts of the world are raising to prominence.