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The Invasion of The Chinese Cyberspies 294

Posted by Zonk from the more-cracking-from-the-east dept.
HorsesAss writes "Time Magazine has an article up entitled 'The Invasion Of The Chinese Cyberspies and the Man Who Tried to Stop Them', which outlines how Chinese PRC is cracking DOD networks and downloading massive sets of files detailing every aspect of military planning and practice." From the article: "The hackers he was stalking, part of a cyberespionage ring that federal investigators code-named Titan Rain, first caught Carpenter's eye a year earlier when he helped investigate a network break-in at Lockheed Martin in September 2003. A strikingly similar attack hit Sandia several months later, but it wasn't until Carpenter compared notes with a counterpart in Army cyberintelligence that he suspected the scope of the threat. Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies."
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The Invasion of The Chinese Cyberspies

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  • Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:36PM (#13421661) Homepage
    USA vs. China

    While the rest of the world chooses sides or tries to get out of the way...

    • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:45PM (#13421714) Journal
      Kinda reminds me of Hulk Hogan vs whomever. The 'whomever' is built into some type of super-human villan. It is curtains for Hogan. All over finished. Then Hogan drops the leg and is victorious once again.

      Then next bad guy. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

      Last 'bad guy' was the EU. Last bad guy before that was Japan. Last bad guy before that was Russia.

      Stupid analogy. Probably. But I am kinda tired and cranky right now, and haven't bought into all the China terror stuff. More tahn likely, China will hit a plateau that they won't be able to crosss as long as things are centrally planned. They will be a force to be reckoned with, sure, but won't be too interested in anything beyond their thousands-of-years-old sphere of influence.

      And all of this will just take our eyes off of the fact that we are decaying from within. Much like Hulk Hogan's skill, physique and hairline were in decline 20 years ago.... Maybe the analogy wasn't as stupid as it first sounded...

      Or maybe it is...

      goodnight all...

      • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:5, Funny)

        by mprinkey ( 1434 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @02:18PM (#13421863)
        A succinct and apt analogy. Maybe now graduates from the Vince McMahon School of Political Science will finally start getting the recognition they justly deserve.
      • The problem with your logic is that even *if* the U.S. is constantly on the hunt for a new enemy for Public Relations purposes ... it may occasionally find a real one!

        I think China might qualify. China has been the hungry dragon for a long, long time. The U.S. will inevitably block some of its goals, and war within the next 50 years is likely.

        1. Issue 1: Taiwan. The U.S. has supported the rights of Taiwan to de facto order its affairs. PRC has insisted on a one-China policy. When the time is right, the P
        • Point #4 is unclear. What I meant is that China is using a different channel -- diplomacy -- to revert to the level of influence in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Laos that it once had through military means. That influence will necessarily rattle cages in both India and in Washington.

        • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @03:14PM (#13422166) Homepage

          Actually nothing you've said indicates that China is an "enemy" of the US.

          Everything you've said is related to China increasing its economic development and exerting influence over its historical area of influence to assist that development and the large Chinese populations in those areas.

          The problem with your concept is that the US believes it and it ALONE can hold ANY influence ANYWHERE in the world. This was EXPLICITLY stated in the PNAC documents that formed the foreign policy of the neocons and Bush. It is a pure implementation of imperialism.

          Therefore it stimulates conflict with states attempting to build their own influence. Iraq, for example, had NO conflict with the US in its sphere of influence. It DID, however, have a conflict with ISRAEL, which used its control over US foreign policy to force a war with Iraq which could cost the US up a trillion dollars.

          The bottom line: the state is the problem, not the populations of those states. The Chinese have no quarrel with Americans, and vice versa. It's our "glorious leaders" and their rich backers who have the problem.

          You want to stop war, get rid of the state.
          • I need to be more clear, then: China is a likely *future enemy* of the U.S. The morality of it, and blame for it, is neither here nor there -- in this thread. I'm simply observing and predicting.
          • You will always have war as long as one group of people can define themselves as "us" and define different people as "them".

            Which gives you the state wars, religious wars, ethnic wars, class wars (French Revolution), etc.

            It's all about control of resources.

          • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Paua Fritter ( 448250 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @07:13PM (#13423388)
            Iraq, for example, had NO conflict with the US in its sphere of influence

            Actually I don't think this is true: prior to the invasion, Iraq had started to sell its oil in Euros instead of US dollars. As long as the world's oil trade is conducted in dollars, the world is essentially lending the US vast sums of money, loans which are backed by the assets of oil exporters. That's why the US "sphere of influence" includes the entire international oil trade.

            If international oil trade were generally conducted in Euros, these benefits would accrue to the European Union. Or if OPEC denominated their product in a currency of their own (a hypothetical petro-dinar), then they could get the benefits themselves! There are other good reasons for OPEC states to drop the dollar, so IMHO the US government was quite right to be concerned that this might trigger a sell-off of dollars. This, I believe, was the real trigger for the invasion, not WMDs, human rights, political reform, terrorism, or whatever the latest excuse is.

        • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Thomas Miconi ( 85282 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @07:03PM (#13423338)
          1. Issue 1: Taiwan. The U.S. has supported the rights of Taiwan to de facto order its affairs. PRC has insisted on a one-China policy. When the time is right, the PRC will try to back its policy with force.

          And get away with it. See Tibet.

          Energy is irrelevant - the US can't force 1.2B Chinese to gulp less oil than 280M Americans.

          North Korea, admitting it survives that long, may start a war, but not one that would involve China. If Kim Jong Il decides to nuke Seoul, the Chinese won't raise a finger to protect him.

          4. Southeast Asia. That part of the world has cooled considerably in the last 30 years, but China still has trading interests there. In fact, it appears to be regrouping its strategy towards diplomatic influence.

          Duh. 30 years ? China has dominated the social, cultural and political landscape in the whole far east for two fscking millenia. They are the big powerful neighbours that you don't want to piss off. Relationships may be uneasy at times, but when it comes to China vs USA, well, one is "the local", the other is "the foreigner". No points for guessing who is who.

          5. South and Central America. For reasons that are unclear, China has made significant inroads into South and Central America: the purchase of the Panama Canal, and sweetheart deals with Venezuela.

          About as unclear as the reason why the US essentially purchased Saudi Arabia in the 40s. Re-Duh !

          Thomas

        • I see you arent aware that the war has begun (Score:4, Interesting)

          by elucido ( 870205 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @08:40PM (#13423779)
          It's called a cold war. Just like the war with Russia, and its started already. The problem is America is losing. Americans are so greedy and selfish that China has learned to exploit Americas corporate weaknesses to its own advantage.

          Outsourcing? It's simple. People who support outsourcing are supporting the Chinese. China is already kicking our asses in the economic war. If you want to win the war with China, you have to win the economic war. There is about 0% chance of the war becoming a physical war because at this level, with this much money at stake, neither country will ever want to have a physical war, and America will not go to war to defend Taiwan just as China will not require physical war to take Taiwan. China will buy Taiwan.

          And before people post saying I don't know what I'm talking about, here is an blog for you all to read. Thomas PM Barnett is a war strategist. Read his blog, do some research on the subject, and then respond to my post.

          Thomas P.M. Barnett is a strategic planner who has worked in national security affairs since the end of the Cold War and has operated his own consulting practice (Barnett Consulting) since 1998. Recently, Tom founded a consulting partnership with two other outstanding individuals called The New Rule Sets Project LLC. The consultancy was acquired by Enterra Solutions, LLC. in August of 2005, with Dr. Barnett as Senior Managing Director.

          Thomas PM Barnett's Blog [thomaspmbarnett.com]

      • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I see more India and China as the dominante powers of a significant portion of the next century. US is now like England between WWI and WWII. In a transition stage where it's prepondominant status is slowly bleeding away towards new players. Trade made the US. But look at history, when a civilization becomes a consumer society, it consumes the wealth accumulated by previous generations. Then, the poor an hungry who can live with little get their chance... India and China have a huge population pool. B
    • The outcome will certainly provide evidence for or against the sloagan "Diversity is our strength."
    • China's going to "win" BTW. They're the next superpower, already competeing for resources.

      Look at your clothes, computer, TV, video, car labels. You can bet most or all of it's from China. That's going to continue till the exchange rate sorts itself out. It's a good thing that they recently "floated" their currency and that it's rising in value.

      http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD &to=CNY&amt=1&t=5d [yahoo.com]

      • Re:Geopolitics of the next 30 years (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @02:24PM (#13421885)
        Look at your clothes, computer, TV, video, car labels.

        Well, 20 years ago, you'd have said the exact same thing about Japan. They themselves were banking on their demonstrably superior manufacturing ingenuity, efficiencies, and focus to make them dominant. They then totally overextended themselves, and their economy has been more or less in the tank ever since.

        Now, the difference between them and the Chinese situation (also sitting on top of an economic bubble they won't be able to sustain) is that the Chinese, having not been aggressors in WWII, don't have any of the politically correct inhibitions about using force to prop up the weak spots in their system. Taiwan would certainly be their first target, and that will cause a wretched mess. But the whole southeast Asia area will feel their influence as they look, themselves, for more resources.

        I'd like to say that the currency float you mentioned was a good thing, but there isn't a single economist who sees it as anything other than an empty political gesture. All they did was let it "float" within very narrow bounds, defined by them, with essentially no impact whatsoever on the real underlying exchange mechanics.

        The real issue here is going to be energy. Probably the most alarming development is the Chinese coziness with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. They're taking a lot of their cash surplus (um, that would be the cash we're spending on their inexpensive products) and pumping a lot of it into investments in that oil producing country. That's fine with Chavez, because China is the nearest thing to an idealogical opposite to the US he can find (well, one that isn't clearly a broken-down mess, like Cuba).

        My guess is that Venezuela will become, is essence, a Chinese outpost. And a huge foothold, economically, in Central/South America. Just in time for the economies in Brazil and Argentina to start looking ripe for more investment.

        So, we may see Wal-Mart eventually filling up with "Made in Brazil" goods, but made by firms operated by Chinese interests.

        I'd not, though, call them the next "superpower" any more than one could refer to the Soviets in that sense. They were, in that they had the military and the nukes to be hugely influential, but it was a house of cards. That won't be as true of the Chinese, in that their businesses are tilting capitalist despite the (now mostly smoke) communist creed of their heavy-handed government. But as long as they are to a large degree centrally managed, they're going to make a lot of the tone-deaf mistakes that the Soviets did. And this time, a whole lot of Chinese citizens are going to be a whole lot quicker to step up and try to prevent the economic flushing that happened in Russia after the USSR tanked. It's going to be fascinating. In the meantime, I'd vote for policies that encourage more US investment in central and south America, and policies that ask the same thing of China that the US must do to do business in their country.

        • Re:Geopolitics of the next 30 years (Score:5, Interesting)

          by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @02:48PM (#13422030) Homepage Journal
          It's not just a bubble, China has copied EVERYTHING Japan has done right down to the bad loans.
          The dollar bought 360 yen from after the war into the 70s, just like a dollar right now buys an inordinate of RMB
          China's industry started off by manufacturing cheap labor intensive goods at western company owned factories, as did Japan.
          China eventually started moving up the food chain, and even making things for their own companies, as did Japan
          Everyone thinks that China's record growth will continue unabated, so banks loan money to businesses that have no realistic hope of ever making a profit. Same thing happened in Japan.
          China's bubble will be bursting, much like Japan's did, but as you pointed out, Japan didn't have nuclear weapons or one of the strongest conventional forces on earth when it's bubble burst.
          China is heading towards having too much capacity, they can't even sell all the stuff they are making, but they are making it anyway. The problem with the export economy is that it cannot grow when it doesn't have anyone to export to anymore. The centrally planned(yes, China's economy is still centrally planned, just not as tightly controlled by the government, much like Japan's economy) works well when you are trying to grow, but the distortions introduced eventually warp the economy. For instance, everyone lists Japan's high rate of savings as one of the reasons that Japan grew so quickly, however now the problem is that they cannot get consumers to spend their money. Every economic report coming out of the country states that, and thus Japan seems to only be able to grow by exporting more.
          The export economy can also warp the economy on the whole in more subtle ways as well. For instance, in Japan the export industries are among the most efficient in the world, but everything outside of it is a mess. All one has to do is walk into any big store in Japan and you are just hit with how many store clerks there are. Overemployment is phenominal there. There are even people at some of the bigger stores who are solely in charge of managing the umbrella condom dispenser(umbrella condoms=the plastic bag you put over your umbrella when you enter a building in Japan. They really aren't called umbrella condoms, but it's an accurate description) China seems to be suffering from some of the same problems, only it's going to get worse there as they have 10x the population of Japan.
          I honestly don't think the world economy can continue on this pace forever. Every poor country wants to get rich the same way Japan did, but for that to happen, the dollar has to remain strong. However, for every dollar they import, the dollar just gets that much weaker. When only 1 country was doing it, but now there are a lot more, and eventually, something will have to break.

        • Well, 20 years ago, you'd have said the exact same thing about Japan.

          People keep making the comparison to Japan in the 1980s, but it's rather misguided. Japan has less than half the population of the US. China on the other hand has more than 4 times the population of the US (and India is similarly gigantic). It is hard to see how, in the long run, the US can maintain the relative world dominance that it now enjoys.

          "Small" countries (which the US is compared to China and India) can sometimes, by acc

          • Re:Bad comparison (Score:3, Interesting)

            by einhverfr ( 238914 )
            Not so sure. YOu seem to think that population makes a superpower. Yet as you also point out, most of the historical superpowers were not necessarily the most populous countries.

            Instead, I think that *trade* makes a superpower. This provides a Grand Unified Theory of Geopolitics which accounts for every major superpower I can think of from the Persians and the Greeks to the US and the EU. The EU is doing a better job at that than the US at the moment, and so I think that they will continue to surpass us.
          • US power has allways relied on networking with other countries, and their current state as an hegemony relies hevily to that. That is what has to be counted for when comparing countries with each other.

            In example: China and India both have over 1 billion inhibitans, when US only has about 300 million. Now count in Mexico and Canada to that, which are geographically close and their economies are tightly linked to US, you get a powerhouse of over 450 million. Okey, that's not so much, but then count in Eu
        • First, I will agree that China is over-rated as the next great powerhouse economically and militarily. Personally, I think that they are clearly a "World Power" but not on the level that either the US or EU are. China would like to be there, but they have a lot of obstacles to overcome.

          The most serious is that China is not, and will probably never be, a pluralist society. The Chinese have almost always seen China as the center of the world in a way that even the US has not done. So while they go back an
          • First, I will agree that China is over-rated as the next great powerhouse economically and militarily. Personally, I think that they are clearly a "World Power" but not on the level that either the US or EU are. China would like to be there, but they have a lot of obstacles to overcome.

            An accurate, if somewhat rough, appraisal of the current situation and the direction of current political, economic, and military momentum.

            The most serious is that China is not, and will probably never be, a pluralist
        • There wasn't a time when everything was made in a Japan. Go try to buy a toaster that isn't made in China. I don't think you can do it. When Japan was rumored to be making everything, you could still find a US made toaster and a few made in Malaysia or Hong Kong. Now you have only one choice and you don't have a choice about many other things as well from kids bikes, kitchenware, ball point pens and even food, so much is now made in China that if there is ever an economic problem between China and the U
        • "My guess is that Venezuela will become, is essence, a Chinese outpost. And a huge foothold, economically, in Central/South America. Just in time for the economies in Brazil and Argentina to start looking ripe for more investment."

          My guess is that, should the scenario you've outlinned be implemented, Uncle Sam will dust off the Monroe Doctrine [wikipedia.org] and, as Teddy Rosevelt put it, walk softly up to China carrying a very big stick.

          • JFK told Castro that if he didn't get the nukes out of Cuba, Cuba would be wiped out proactively.

            But that was 40 years ago. Times have changed.

            We're now in an era where the US sits hamstrung by global politics while country after country gets nukes. Pakistan, North Korea, and now Iran who is suceeding in stalling until they inevitably reveal that the secret cake is out of the oven.

            I don't see how we could stop anybody from acquiring nuclear technology no matter how close to home unless we were willing to

      • China will loose (Score:2, Insightful)

        by John Seminal ( 698722 )
        China's going to "win" BTW. They're the next superpower, already competeing for resources.

        Look at your clothes, computer, TV, video, car labels. You can bet most or all of it's from China. That's going to continue till the exchange rate sorts itself out. It's a good thing that they recently "floated" their currency and that it's rising in value.

        Unlike the USA which has no enemy country in striking distance, China has more than 2 countries capable of a long term war. They have Japan which is the econo

        • Your information about China is outdated. As is your information on the possibility of US military intervention in an eastern war scenario - the US forces are bound in the middle east, and would not be sufficient to proactively engage to help Taiwan if the PRC decided to "take it back".

          One more point: The Chinese always used mere manpower to win battles - and they would do so in a war on Taiwan as well. Taiwan currently owns 150 [wikipedia.org] F-16, so what, if the PRC can easily send ten times that much firepower?
      • You are making that same mistake that I see repeated again and again... On a confrontation both sides lose. That means that if US and China face some real confrontation (even if a cold one) the most likely result is the growth of another power (EU?).

    • Re:Geopolitics of the next 100 years (Score:5, Insightful)

      by globalar ( 669767 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @02:30PM (#13421918) Homepage
      "Invasion", hackers (with a sense of purpose no less!), "new breed of enemy". Typical Time insight.

      The reason to release information on this is almost purely a Pentagon press game. They have their own little war going on with China already. It's mostly been bearucratic (arguing over how much money is being spent on military budgets, saying one side is a threat, etc.) Occassionaly they move major pieces of the Pacific fleet, just to stir up speculation (in the U.S. press mostly). The Pentagon does have some necons nesting there, so taking a coarse line is in vogue.

      Practically speaking, the Pentagon has also long been aware of the "soft-power" threats, especially IT. They have invested in computer networks for decades. Over the last decade work has gone into networking everything (in terms of information) and finding ways to control their resources electronically. The technocrats are keen on the U.S. military's weaknesses. This is translated by the more politically-minded managment into a counter-statement: The U.S. is vulnerable to an information war, but the better way to say this is to play up the threat of China in terms of cyber*buzzword*.

      The Pentagon can argue for more funding this way and field little/no criticism. Same with the PLA in China (who has a growing budget). Both militaries are getting what they want without a huge payout in budget (i.e. a traditional war). And I definitely wouldn't rule out ego on both sides of the Pacific.
    • "Given such assurances, Carpenter was surprised when, in March 2005, his FBI handlers stopped communicating with him altogether. Now the federal law-enforcement source tells TIME that the bureau was actually investigating Carpenter while it was working with him."

      I'm not surprised at all.

      The policy of the state is always to create new enemies to justify its existence.

      The US ALLOWED the Chinese to steal nuclear secrets some years ago because they want the Chinese to be a credible threat in ten or twenty or th
    • Fuck me! I'm Chinese American. I guess it's off to the concentration camps for me... excuse me, I meant internment camps.
    • Who needs military confrontations when we can feed them McDonalds and KFC, sell them American cigarettes, and then get them to drive fast cars on their newly-built high speed freeways.

      They can retaliate by poaching our intellectual property - Ha! We will invent crappy action movies and bad pop music CDs so fast they won't be able to keep up.

      Take that, Evil Commies!

  • Just the Chinese? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kitsook ( 516402 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:37PM (#13421665)
    If the DoD systems are so easy to crack, what is stopping others to attack them?

    • Re:Just the Chinese? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:40PM (#13421683) Homepage
      And, more importantly, why doesn't the DoD get their files off internet-connected PCs?

    • Re:Just the Chinese? (Score:4, Funny)

      by MoogMan ( 442253 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:50PM (#13421736)
      The Law.

    • Re:Just the Chinese? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @02:37PM (#13421968) Journal
      If the DoD systems are so easy to crack, what is stopping others to attack them?

      Did you consider the USA wants those systems hacked by the Chinese.

      It is like the old lawyer trick. My company made a product we knew would break and result in death (Say a car tire that we knew would explode and cause cars to turn over). Now your lawyers knows this, so they get a court to subpeona the papers showing we knew the product was bad. Instead of sending that one report, we send you that report mixed in 250,000 other reports. Hell, we might send you 249,999 reports and the 1 you wanted is missing. We send you so much stuff, that your whole legal staff is running at 110% and getting nowhere.

      The point is if lawyers can use misinformation, I am sure the government is too. We did it with the USSR, causing them to spend so much on the military that their economy collapsed. Are we doing the same thing with China? Giving them a bunch of false "intel" that the Chinese believe they "stole" when in fact we wanted them to get it??

  • Meh. I wouldn't worry about it (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:38PM (#13421667)
    It's not like they're terrorists or anything

    • It's not like they're terrorists or anything

      Nope, sure ain't terrorists.

      This is state-sponsored industrial espionage. Why spend five years developing the flight software for a helicopter when you can just steal it?

      The article talks of one guy who got a bit too grey for the FBI's liking, and that of his employers. Basically he was having too much fun chasing his bad guys and bugging routers in Guandong, China.

      Stupid really. This should have gone to the NSA to become a disinformation campaign.

  • Separate networks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by confusion ( 14388 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:38PM (#13421670) Homepage
    Isn't this the reason that there is supposed to be an air gap between classified networks are and unclassified networks?

    I'm wondering how much of what was obtained is planted information to look like something valuable. Then again, it is the government we're talking about, so it could well be national secrets.

    Jerry
    http://www.itcapability.com/ [itcapability.com]

    • Re:Separate networks (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is a gap between the 2. As far as I know, there has never been a hacking of a classified computer system in the DoD. The problem is that while single documents may be marked unclassified or for official use only, gathering a large number of those documents could actually be marked secret.
      • How would you know?

      • Re:Separate networks (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Artifakt ( 700173 )
        Most of soldiers 'legal' paperwork is just graded confidential. Records with information such as who a soldier names as his or her next of kin, or how many dependants they claim with the IRS certainly aren't normally classified secret. However, the information that a whole army reserve unit has just gone through a whole bunch of personnel record upgrades and gotten say 98% compliance from the individual soldiers makes a pretty good indicator that the unit is being made more quickly deployable, and likel
    • The article says:

      "So far, the files they have vacuumed up are not classified secrets, but many are sensitive and subject to strict export-control laws, which means they are strategically important enough to require U.S. government licenses for foreign use."

      The article's author is kind of misleading here. The files so far vacuumed up are not classified BECAUSE there's an air gap. The author implies, however, that it's only a matter of time that these hackers will get through.

      • Re:Separate networks (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gabacho4 ( 850142 )
        As someone who uses the many networks available, if the day comes that our classified systems are compromised we are all severely screwed. The article is misleading as the sites being exploited are one the internet. Available to anyone with an internet connection. There is a huge jump from the open internet (NIPR) to the SECRET(SIPR) and TOP SECRET(JWICS) networks.

        • And you only need to compromise one person with access to those networks to penetrate those networks.

          And I'm sure the Chinese have already done that, or are working on it in the unlikely event they haven't.

          The Russians and Israelis undoubtedly did it years ago. Hell, the Israelis run the FBI's entire wiretapping operation! And you think they don't have agents in place in that operation?

          The notion that NO ONE has EVER compromised a US secret network is so ridiculous I can't even conceive of anyone being stup
    • Isn't this the reason that there is supposed to be an air gap between classified networks are and unclassified networks?

      Hmmm.... I can see various issues with this. However, a decent compromise might be to have a whitelist of systems or networks that are allowed to connect and block everyone else at least for these hosts containing this sort of information. Yes, maintenance becomes a pain but this is the price of security.

      A second thought I had was that I can't imagine that the army would be that cautio

  • Why doesn't the DOD just lock out all of China? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is there a reason that they even bother accepting traffic from any where outside of the US?

  • Fortunately! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) * on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:41PM (#13421692)
    Wow. And it isn't an article written by John Markov? I'm shocked!

    I guess the government and corporate world should have been paying more attention to what breeches by harmlessly curious teenagers signaled rather than harassing and fining and jailing them for embarrassing them for their own incompetence while letting actual national threats from foreign nations occur.

    It's a good thing they turned those 13 little kids from that one school into felons for typing in a password that was obvious and widely available to install stuff on the laptops they were given to use. Today, installing iChat. Tomorrow? - secret highly paid communist spies haxoring into the super elite United States government. OH NOES!

    • Re:Fortunately! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stewwy ( 687854 )
      Another example of kill the messenger and ignore the problem , which seems so prevalent in western society

  • Overblown? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Snoolas ( 910809 )
    To me the whole thing sounds a bit... Dramatized. It sounds like it came from a movie. It wouldn't surprise me if the truth was exaggerated just a tiny bit.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yes, exactly. My first thought was 'Am I supposed to shocked and horrified about this? Well, Im not!'. You can bet your ass that the US is doing exactly the same against the Chinese defence contracters and other companies.
      • In support of my assertion that the US will be doing exactly the same, I point to some recent Lockerbie bombing allegations [scotsman.com] regarding the CIA and faked evidence. Believe me, a top level policeman and a former CIA employee dont simply make this sort of stuff up, although it is up to a court of law to decide if its admissable.
    • I don't know how many people in the west realises this; that PRoC despite all the "diplomatic olive branches" they've extending, has *NEVER* ceased considering the United States as their enemy number one, nor have they ever stopped educating their young of that. Anyone thinking otherwise is fooling themselves.

  • 'Secret' procedures.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Halfbaked Plan ( 769830 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:44PM (#13421712)
    ...like democratic practices.

    I wonder if the clever cyberspies have downloaded the minutes from any Town Meetings, or 'subversive' documents like Robert's Rules of Order?

    The US should just import in more pop culture. That is what has successfully subverted communist regimes best in the past. Send 'em Ramones, The Clash, Gang Of Four punk rawk.
  • "Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies."

    Who wants to take bets that they're using the type of 'hacking' methods as that guy searching for evidence of UFOs in the story a while back? Logging into systems without passwords, etc. isn't 'hacking' (or cracking, if you prefer) into 'secure' systems.
    • Not only that, but if they're hackable, or have been hacked into, they're not secure.

    • Logging into systems without passwords, etc. isn't 'hacking' (or cracking, if you prefer) into 'secure' systems.

      Well it depends. Gathering the information where something is stored in itself is like hacking, because there is no difference between having to guess 15135342 in http://somesite.gov/secretdoc/15135342.doc [somesite.gov] and having to guess 15135342 as a password.

      Also, downloading one such document is no hacking, but continuing to do so after you realize that you entered a part of a system in an unexpected

      • there is no difference between having to guess 15135342 in http://somesite.gov/secretdoc/15135342.doc [somesite.gov] and having to guess 15135342 as a password

        Looks like someone doesn't know very much about HTTP.

        There are many more ways to discover (rather than having to guess) that 1513542 is the filename than guessing a password.

        Besides the fact that most filenames are based on a logical sequence (so 1513542 would logically follow 1513541, and someone who has access to it might *MISTYPE* the filename, and thus get the w

  • This article is funny (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsotha ( 720379 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:54PM (#13421764)
    The writer tries to dance around it, but if you read between the lines you see reason these servers are connected to the internet is they don't hold classified data. Every day the DoD produces an unthinkable amount of documentation, and only a small portion of it actually matters to anyone (including DoD).

    Oh, and this guy is a moron. Part of the counter-intelligence game is to make sure the enemy doesn't know he's been caught. This guy is such a bull in the china shop he's destroyed any chance we'll be able to learn "means and methods" information from this ring.

    • but if you read between the lines you see reason these servers are connected to the internet is they don't hold classified data. Every day the DoD produces an unthinkable amount of documentation, and only a small portion of it actually matters to anyone (including DoD).

      I disagree if you think gathering innocuous near-open source information isn't important. In the article it stated "these hackers wanted all the files they could find." It's obvious now that the Chinese way of collecting information is to t

  • Absolutely Expected (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alric ( 58756 ) <{gro.dlefdnuhnet} {ta} {todhsals}> on Sunday August 28, 2005 @01:59PM (#13421780) Homepage Journal
    While the article was written to be dramatic and exciting, this scenario is assuredly based on truth.

    Does anyone seriously doubt that China, India, Russia, and Israel have teams of computer scientists probing U.S. government and corporate networks?

    Does anyone doubt the U.S. has many, many teams (NSA, CIA, DIA - especially AirForce Intelligence) probing foreign networks and eavesdropping on practically ALL digital communication?

    Would you be surprised if a CIA field op were found in China? Digital espionage is the future. Expect it.
  • why the hell critical military information would be widely (and easily) accessible over an insecure media like the internet? It's kinda like those nitwits who worry about our power grid getting hacked: we don't hook up the power grid controls to the Internet! Geez, as if there aren't enough Americans running scared from terrorists we get more of this crap. Anyway, I like to think the US military isn't gonna put the plans for our latest military tech on an unpatched IIS server.
  • If my experience is any indicator, I'd not be surprised at all. Most of the GS employees working on the Navy Marine Corp Internet (NMCI) I met while working as a consultant were......less than knowledgable when it came to standard security practices and safe-guards. This, coupled with a 8-4 mentality and running the world's largest intranet on MS Windows makes for a likely target.
  • Desert Storm 1 and 2.

    If you think the Soviets crapped thier pants reading after action reports of the speed and leathality 12 M-1 Tanks taking out 38 T-72's and stealth bombers and fighters penetrating Iraqi air space and bombing targets of interest. The Chinese are even more frightened.

    Buying Soviet manufactured technology and hardware may be robust but when a single squadron of stealth figters is able to take out your signal and command structure you need to do anything that gives you an edge.

    Why invent a
    • All that is great, unless your opponent is willing to die to destroy you.

      Remember, they just need a nuke, or a bacterium, or an airplane, or a rumour. Explode a nuke or two in Antartica under the ice shelf, and you have the worlds most dangerous WMD. Explode one in the Pacific, at the bottom of the ocean and you could trigger off an earthquake.

      Send a few over in suitcases and explode thek at the airport itself. Nothing like a few kilograms of depleted Uranium or Plutonium in the air to kill people.
  • I think it's time for a paradigm change when it comes to secret information.

    How about making all information available freely with the expectation that free coumtries and societies will be able to make better use of it than tyrrinical centralized ones. It would also do a lot to keep governments honest, transparent, and accountable, which to me is a far greater threat then the Chineese.

    IMHO, we have recently become more vulnerable to the Chineese, not because they have become stronger - but because we have
  • Chinese People's Republic of China?

    Not to be the acronymn police, but do you want to try that one again? Or does PRC stand for something else here, because I didn't find it mentioned in TFA.

  • Paranoia .... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DoktorTomoe ( 643004 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @03:21PM (#13422192)

    This is like the second "evil yellow little men are trying to haxxor our WOPRs"-story on ./ in mere 3 days. Somehow this is like the WMD discussion just before the Iraq war.


    Governments and nations spy on each other. The Chinese spy on the US and vice versa, the US spies on practically everyone, the Russians spy on China, and Germany spies on the US. That's the way international politics work when information is essential.


    Really, if information retrieval from government webservers and "hacking" are your [US citizens] only problems, you may feel lucky, as there is one great solution: Do not connect mission-critical systems to a network or a subnet virtually everyone has access to.


  • so? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by whathappenedtomonday ( 581634 )
    the NSA has Echelon and uses it to spy on the whole world - so how can anyone complain? It's still the same (post cold war) game, only the weapons changed.

    I wonder when European countries will finally stop taking part in this [wikipedia.org]...

  • Usually only fools think in terms of white in black, because their not bright enough to understand the true complexity of life. Will we at some level be at odds with China, most definitely. Will China be our largest trading partner, most definitely.
    Therefore there will be a great deal of ambivalence in our relations, with China trying to wield its new found power and America trying to maintain a unipolar world order, but at the same time both sides not wanting to disrupt many of the de

  • Sounds like Carpenter tooting his horn (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SysKoll ( 48967 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @08:30PM (#13423728)
    Let's see, the FBI doesn't want to have to do anything with the hero of this story. Story is totally devoid of technical content. The article is littered with fluffy little improbable pieces like When he uncovered the Titan Rain routers in Guangdong, he carefully installed a homemade bugging code in the primary router's software. -- how? By clicking on the "Install homemade bugging code" link in the router's web page? Or was that "router" running IIS4 on Windows? Puhlease.

    The story's author is Nathan Thornburgh. A look at his track records at the Time [time.com] shows a total lack of technology articles. And this story isn't raising his average. Looks like the author is anything but a techie. Which doesn't prevent him from writing down to his audience about things he knows nothing about.

    Frankly, I can't help but wonder if Thornburgh hasn't been completely hogwashed by this Carpenter guy. The story would also be a tad more convincing if the artcile didn't read like a bad movie script or one of those inane pulp "hacker" novels concocted by writers who think using FTP to transfer files is a great technical prowess.

    Thornburgh should write B-movies for the sci-fi channel. At least he won't have to explain the technobabble.

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