FBI Looks Into Chinese Role in Darfur Site Hack 107
Amy Bennett writes "This past weekend we discussed an increasing level of attacks online, targeting Tibetan-based NGOs. Now the BBC is reporting that the Save Darfur Coalition has called in the FBI on what appears to be a similar matter. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a spokesman with the group, doesn't know who is behind the attacks, but he said the IP addresses of the computers that had hacked his organization were from China. Save Darfur has been trying to get China, one of Sudan's largest trading partners, to pressure Sudan's government into stopping the mass killings in Darfur's ongoing civil war. 'Someone in Beijing is trying to send us a message,' Brooks-LaSure said. Probably the same message they're sending by continuing to shut down video sites covering the Tibetan unrest."
IP Adress != Proof of government involvement (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to realize that many Chinese youth today feel China is wronged by the West by a double standard, I won't go into the details as you can read them yourself (ex. the fb group "Tibet WAS,IS,and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China"). But the point is, the attack is more likely to be caused by a Chinese citizen than the government itself.
In another story I read this comment by Digestromath (1190577) and it pretty much nails it.
Like the parent said, the Chinese government would be stupid to attack these sites right before the Olympics. I read a book called "China Shakes the World" By James Kynge and in one chapter in mentioned how the Chinese government has "nurtured nationalism in the youth into so potent a force that they are about to loose control of it."(remembering from the top of my mind...)For example, Only recently are the Japanese portrayed in a semi-positive light in WWII TV series, which probably explains the large amount of people that participate in anti-Japanese riots.
Of course the Chinese government could do more to stop these attacks, but the political climate in China prevents it from happening. No, I'm not talking about the dictatorship of the people. See, anyone that stands up and say these actions are wrong would be labeled a traitor by both politicians and majority of the citizens alike. So politicians tries to avoid denouncing anti-foreigner actions for the sake of their own skin.
political testing before military testing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No chinese term for "bad PR"? (Score:4, Interesting)
If Taiwan did declare independence (officially) there would be military action from China even if it means war with the US.
Re:IP was from China, sooo? (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in the network security field. Probably 70% of the IP space I block at the edge of my network is Chinese. The Pentagon and DoD have had repeated problems with hackers using Chinese IPs in the last two years or so. Make no mistake about it, this effort is tacitly (if not outrightly) being supported by the Chinese government.
Here's a sample- Google "china hacking" for plenty more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uschina4mar04,1,3559963.story [latimes.com]
Parent is spot-on but doesn't go far enough (Score:3, Interesting)
It's more than that; that kind of nationalism (such as the "eternal dominance" claims over Tibet and Taiwan) serves directly to legitimize the power and prestige of the existing government. They're not just scared to denounce it; they actively encourage it because it helps promote their power. People who are passionately committed to their existing government and to what they see it as standing for don't much care if they technically can't vote or publicly disagree with policy; and it's much easier to convince a mob that they're The Best, from The Longest Cultural Tradition, with a Manifest Destiny Over Everything, etc. than to convince them that they don't need a public sphere because Things Are In Good Hands. Especially in the sticks, where there's no other distraction because they won't get rich and live fat, dumb, and happy.
If you think about it, it's exactly the same tactics that function very effectively in (ferinstance) conservative politics in the US.
Re:IP was from China, sooo? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lately the world's been trying to undermine China who is looking like the next superpower. Western leaders are continually meeting with the Dalai Lama to make them mad. Soon there will be Olympic boycotts.
Western leaders meet with the Dalai Lama because he is a religious leader to many people, and an advocate of peace. He does have the Nobel Peace Prize. That was not awarded as some anti-chinese conspiracy. Not everything about the Dalai Lama is about China - despite what the Chinese will try to assert. Just another example of how China does it's best to control-control-control *our* dialog. It is extremely ego-centric.
If the Chinese had done *nothing wrong*, then they would have *nothing* to censor, and would not be concerned about managing our perception of them. Their censorship in the Tibet matter speaks volumes.
There must be some cognitive disfunction when we talk about free-thinking. For example, I've seen Chinese people get extremely defensive when you talk about censorship. This country lashes out at the west for ridiculous things, such as talking to people. What type of paranoid person tries to control who other people talk to. Do the Chinese not understand free association?
The west has made many mistakes on human rights issues, and wishes that China would learn from history. So far, the Chinese have been busy revising history to create some sort of false image - a situation analogous to a person who dwells in dreams.
The west doesn't want to undermine China at all. The west just doesn't want to be tarnished by chinese crimes against it's own citizens while it greedily buys chinese goods. All this violence and censorship is entirely unnecessary.
Re:Oh, we could hurt them... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they make everything, but who buys their stuff? If no one buys their stuff, what happens to them? They lose trillions of dollars. If they stop making their stuff, what happens to us? In the short term, prices on eBay go up for goods Americans have that are out of stock, but in the long run, we build our own factories to fill the market needs, and that is actually good for Americans. And if the factories don't get built here, they go to India and Latin American countries, which are far more stable anyway.
By outsourcing to India and Latin American countries, America is actually cutting her own throat - she is personally building the economies that will allow the Chinese to stop propping up her failing economy. India followed only China in growth in recent years and is now considered in the top dozen economies of the world, while accounting for about 17% of the world's population (about four times more consumers than the US). Brazil has more than half the population of the US and a stronger economy than India. Don't forget about Russia, the third strongest growing economy who is aggressively pushing population growth and relations with China. China's dependence on the US consumer is a very time-limited reality.
I'm completely confused about your comment about India and Latin America being far more stable than China. The US has directly used economic and military pressure to keep Latin America unstable for better than half a century. There's almost always multiple civil wars in progress (or fights between terrorists and puppet dictators, if you like).
You say they have nuclear weapons. Well, we have more, and as China is a smaller nation in terms of land area, we have the advantage of having less square footage to wipe out. You say you can't see how we could hurt them, when we could actually wipe out their country many times over. And we have a least a partial missile shield, which of course wouldn't stop them, but is at least slightly better than the nothing they have. So there isn't going to be a nuclear engagement.
I can't speak for the parent poster, but I read his comment about nuclear weapons simply as a statement supporting his assessment of China's current superpower status. It is ludicrous to suggest, as you do, that a difference in land mass gives us some advantage in a nuclear war. To quote Joshua, the only winning move is not to play.
If we had a conventional weapons war, our conventional weapons are better. True, they have more people, but as more of our weaponry becomes automated that becomes less of an advantage for them, so long as we can mass produce our robots.
The recent wars undertaken by the US are but minor skirmishes compared to a military confrontation with China, yet the US military industry is supported primarily by loans from China. If the US economy were forced to bear the cost of Afghanistan and Iraq, the current economic woes would seem like the good old days. Now imagine the costs of a real war, then factor in that America would be fighting against the nation financing its current military operations. I see a relatively small window in which you can continue to mass produce your magic robots.
We also have higher technology than they do. We alone posess most of the technology for making the fastest computer chips, and that gives us an extraordinary advantage. They recently attempted to make their own home grown "Dragon" PC chip in an effort to not be dependent on us, and it turned out to be the equivalent of a very slow 486.
Your "stable" comment in your first point confused me. Now you've totally lost me. You think that all computer technology knowledge is locked away in a vault somewhere in the US? Perhaps you keep it in Fort Knox? I guess you aren't aware that Intel has production facilities in China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Israel, Ireland, India, Philippines, and Russia? I don't suppose you realized that AMD's primary research and manufacturing