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.
Sanctions (Score:3, Insightful)
It will be interesting to see just what form the response to these sorts of attacks will take. Hard-liners will want old school military war games and confrontation, but I suspect steps like US and EU invalidation of Chinese purchased US and EU debt and economic sanctions will be far more effective.
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Additionally, there seems to be enough doubt as to provide "plausible" deniability, or it could just be attributed to "...someone's unilateral wet dream" (quoted from Enemy of the
Re:Sanctions (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem: if the Chinese military can get enough control over Pentagon computers, then it doesn't really matter what their own hardware capabilities are, they'll be able to deploy some US military hardware for their own objectives.
Re:Sanctions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sanctions (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit, do you really think we have not done the exact same thing to their networks? Besides, this is not a movie; most military systems (and all if they felt the need) are on a private intranet. While this can be hacked into in theory, if that becomes an issue, we can simply take the stuff offline. Tanks don't need Wi-Fi uplinks to kill people.
And besides, this is moot. China does not have to resort to high-tech fantasy tricks to beat us. China has a GDP of 7 trillion dollars, while the US has one of 12 trillion. Their economy is growing at 10% per year, ours grows at 3%. Do the math, in a decade or so, even if Chinese have one 5th the per capita income of the US, they will have a larger GDP.
With a larger GDP, they will be able to outspend us militarily, without causing any strain on their economy. In the face of such a demographic certainty, the worst thing we can do is to act aggressive and provoke China into an arms race. Unlike the Soviet Union, they could actually win one.
Re:Sanctions (Score:4, Interesting)
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Simply put, their GDP is based on population size, that population has to be supported via that self-same number. Our per capita productivity and wealth far outstrips their numbers by such a margin as to be laughable. Therefore, we can afford to spend far more of our capital on warfare than they can without resorting to cannibalizing our infrastructure or quality of life to do so.
Over
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Think of it this way substance farmers increase GDP but they do little to aid military spending.
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.
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Not a problem. Really. Not a Problem
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Have you ever considered that China's economy is not centrally planned anymore? Japan just happens to be the closest industrialized country to China, so that is where it makes the most sense to import heavy machinery from? It seems that South Korea, Singapore, and Australia seem to have large surpluses too, adding credence to the theory.
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There's two problems with trying to use their cash to screw over the US. The first is that what good is money if you can't spend
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In the later case, it would be very likely that other countries would come to t
Re:Sanctions (Score:4, Insightful)
That's SO far from the truth that I don't know whether you're lying or incredibly deceived. The US army is at breaking point, and the situation is spiraling out of control in both occupations.
There's no such thing as a democracy under military occupation. The UN even says so.
That statement carries the absurd assumption that some people don't want democracy. EVERYONE wants democracy, apart from the small group of people who currently have control, of course. But the majority of the population will ALWAYS support democracy AND self-determination.
You're obviously under the false impression that our aim there is to create a beautiful, blossoming democracy! It's not. It's to grab resources and set up military bases. Democracy is a word that the ruling class throw around. It's meaning in this context is, "A group of individuals of considerable power who will do our bidding". And they can't even get THAT right. But the main goal is to secure Afghanistan and Iraq, and is slipping further away from us each day.
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Oh yea, just so you know, most of the 6 billion people on this earth don't want to live in USA.
Re:Sanctions (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is completely absurd. In the US conservatives are generally not after democracy. They want the rest of the country to live under rules they choose. That is not self-determination.
Most people's views on government is tied strongl
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You must not be paying attention. First, the army isn't over stretched. They might be stretched further then they want to be, or more likely more then you want them to be but they aren't in any place that cannot handle. Second, The reasons we are in the position we are in is because we aren't fighting to win a war li
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Manufacturers of blood transfusion equipment and anabolic steroids care.
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Terrorism follows fast in the footsteps of trade embargos and economic sanctions: a fast and reliable way to incite hatred in anyone is to restrict their growth. The one reason some countries are so angry at America is precisely because of it's embargos: the assumption that it has the right to police and punish them economically or otherwise.
The popular press will tell you terrorism
Carte Blanche (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing. Quite frankly China has tested the limits of both the US and UN for years, and neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations were willing or capable of doing anything. With problems in Iran, Syria, North Korea, oh and those two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US does not have the capability to swat a fly elsewhere, let alone threaten the military might of China.
China knows they can get away with such actions, so they will. If you don't believe me, look up recent actions regarding Taiwan, Tibet and East Timor, amongst other things. China also does nothing to combat the millions of dollars in lost US revenue from stolen IP, yet we give them favored trading partner status, making our trade deficit worse.
Re:Carte Blanche (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Carte Blanche (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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It cuts both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It cuts both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd say it really boils down to how much you're willing to spend on your next pair of Nukes.
Re:It cuts both ways (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of who is in power China it has had a "foreign policy" that for 2000yrs has shown little (if any) interest in expanding China's borders.
US generals have all read and still use Sun Tzu's "art of war", I suggest you read the bit entitled "on the use of spies" before you pick a fight with the guys who turned strategic "games" into an artform.
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US Military could benefit (Score:5, Insightful)
- Making an advanced US capability seem flaky or ineffective
- Making a flaky or undeveloped US capability seem advanced and devastating
- Sending the Chinese into fruitless directions in R&D, costing them billions
- Trick the Cninese into types of action that could yield up some useful intel for the US
The opportunities are endless.Re: (Score:2)
But this would be fortunately us
Re:US Military could benefit (Score:5, Funny)
* Making an advanced US capability seem flaky or ineffective
* Making a flaky or undeveloped US capability seem advanced and devastating
* Sending the Chinese into fruitless directions in R&D, costing them billions
* Trick the Cninese into types of action that could yield up some useful intel for the US
The opportunities are endless.
Operation GW commenced January 20th 2001 and has successfully misled the world into thinking we are idiots. We have made it appear we make vast amounts of wealth disappear through military industrial graft and sunk our monetary values 40% relative to other western powers. We've gotten involved in a war we knew we couldn't leave gracefully, and shown corruption at every level. We have given the appearance of crushing our education system with theology, and appeared to have revised the public education curriculum to cater to the dumbest common denominator. We have lulled the entire world into thinking we are a country of backwards mouth breathers.As soon as we devalue our currency to 20% relative value and ensure 99% of all top ivy league school student are foreign we will truly be in a position to surprise the world without awesome cunning and leap forth and conquer the world.
Re:Carte Blanche (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly do you propose the U.S. do? The Chinese are holding such huge U.S dollar reserves they could ruin the U.S. economy just by dumping them, though they would probably cause a global economic collapse and suffer as much as everyone else if they did.
The U.S. has transfered so much capital and IP to China, and we are so dependent on the steady stream of container shipping from China you pretty much have to look the other way at anything short of open warfare.
Besides which China is a Republican businessman's fantasy come true. It has a vast pool of dirt cheap labor, no labor unions, almost no business regulation, no environmental controls, and workers either keep their mouths shut or they are harshly dealt with by the state. They have one party authoritarian rule and as long as that one party is pro business, which they have been for the last couple decades, they are a Republican's wet dream. Why do you think so many big western corporations are rushing to China lock, stock and barrel. Liberal democracies sucks for business, you have to pay people more than a subsistence wage, you can't kill 4000 a year in coal mines like you can in China, you can't lock workers up if they bitch....
The new Fascist China is pure heaven for Republicans, so their is almost nothing China is going to do they are going to have a problem with including this. Most western businessman and politicians are way more fixated on kissing Chinese ass these days than they are starting some kind of confrontation with them.
Besides which when it comes to network security if you are stupid enough to put anything important on the Internet, and you can't keep it secure you kind of deserve what you get, doesn't really matter where the attack comes from.
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Well duh (Score:2)
Hell if the US started yelling at other countries trying to s
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[American mode] All them thar' funny lookin' Asian people's the same. [/American mode]
Or, [King of the Hill mode] So, are you Chinese or Japanese? [/King of the Hill mode]
I have run into this sort of problem. There are so many people in the US who don't even know the difference between Indonesian and Filipino. Just a bunch of brown-skinned island dwellers, as far as they are concerned.
Windows to blame? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Wouldn't change a thing. (Score:2)
I'm sure if China really wanted to screw with our economy they would "leak" any microsoft code they had- that would put an end to Bill's empire quite efficicntly and all those billions would need to work elsewhere. certainly that would cause the economy to shift a little, wouldnt it?
No, it wouldn't. The Windows source code has been leaked before. It caused more problems for OSS projects than it did for Microsoft. Not sure about today, but you used to be able to find it trivially on most P2P networks. Since it's not legitimately public, you can't do much of anything with it -- not if you're a legitimate business/project, anyway. And it provided a good way for Microsoft to question OSS projects that challenged their monopoly (like ReactOS); if anything played too nicely with actual MS s
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Why is Windows Shared Source more vulnerable to this type of attack than Linux and other Open Source things?
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Ok, I use Linux, but that doesn't make a lot of sense...
Why is Windows Shared Source more vulnerable to this type of attack than Linux and other Open Source things?
Simply put,
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.
Unclassified (Score:3, Insightful)
questions, assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
* were they secured computers? You know, the ones networked via fiber in concrete-filled conduits so that the physical layer can't be compromised?
* is this even a new thing?
Assumptions:
Is everyone so sure that the US hasn't ALREADY hacked the Chinese computers?
Before everyone gets their panties in an uproar, some context would be nice.
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This would simply be poking the US to see what happens, to see how lame they have become, push and push a little bit more. When it comes to hacking the
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Ummm... (Score:2)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Espionage is one of the oldest tools of civilization. Heck, even allies spy on each other. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the Brits were doing the same things to the US.
Espionage, in fact, can be a very good thing for peace. The Soviets and the Americans knew so much about each others' military capacity and arsenals that neither side dreamed of an open, direct conflict. A lack of knowledge of the opposing side's capacity would have been infinitely more dangerous.
Because you almost certainly return the favour (Score:2)
The Chinese spy on us. We spy on them. While it's inane, expensive, and annoying, it will go on for a long time yet. Heck, the CIA spies on various European countries too...
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This sort of thing is routinely accepted by all countries. China puts up with US intelligence agencies hacking into their systems, the US puts up with Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Iranian etc etc hackers trying to get into their systems.
You may remember a few years ago China shot down a US spy plane above their skies. The US defence was that the su
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Wire up the IDS (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Re:Wire up the IDS (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you dont see any difference, I expect to see you in the enlistment line first thing tomorrow morning. And dont make up some BS that youve 'already served' because it will be a lie. NO SINGLE PERSON who has been in war, will make the suggestion to simply to go to war over a PC break-in.
And if you STILL dont see any difference, try the following links; http://theheretik.typepad.com/the_heretik/images/c hild_of_war_life_in_death_053005.jpg [typepad.com]
http://www.videos1.informationclearinghouse.info/i mages/seven.jpg [informatio...house.info]
Those that modded this 'insightful' I would expect will be in the front of that enlistment line tomorrow, right ahead of you.
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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:5, Funny)
I can see it now. Some wack-job malcontent who would otherwise have loaded up a truck with explosives and taken out half a federal building and its daycare centre will instead penetrate the network of a western company in China. From there, he will penetrate a Chinese low-security network, and launch an attack against the toilet paper inventory system at the Pentagon. This will trigger the IDS, and the next thing we know the United States of America launches a first-strike against the Henan branch of the People's Yak Testicle Grading Board because that's who the attacking IP address belongs to. China retaliates. The U.S.A. retaliates against the retaliation.
Still look like a good idea?
(And for fuck's sake, nobody mod this funny. Okay, the People's Yak Testicle Grading board is hilarious, but the thought of *any* automated system being hooked up to launch controls is the stuff of nightmares... especially when there's no real way to tell if the "attack" is from your opponent or someone else who wants to pin the blame on them. Someone massing troops on the border or lobbing nukes your way? Worth a military escalation. Someone probing your network? Not so much.)
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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 peo
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Lighten up, Francis.
Highly Armed Nincompoops (Score:3, Insightful)
They're not just too incompetent to defend their systems (I'm sure the US penetrates the Chinese, too). But they're too dumb to refrain from penetrating each other, or just not get caught.
These are the kinds of "brinksmanships" that keep us all close to the edge of destroying each other ("ourselves"). The kinds of stupid, complicated slap-happiness that gets out of hand. And gets into killing.
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100% Troll
What, exactly, was the response I was "trolling" for? TrollMods think they're armed to the teeth with mod points.
Relax (Score:2)
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Re:Highly Armed Nincompoops (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. America makes me very nervous. Oh, isn't that what you meant?
China has around 200 nuclear weapons, compared to the US's 5000+.
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And frankly, the bigger the weapons, the less brains behind them.
With King George W. the least brainy of all, with the most firepower.
And this is the way it's been since man walked the Earth.
Mankind will never mak
What operating system? (Score:2)
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Does anybody actually believe (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does anybody actually believe (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Yet another anti-china story, in a long list of anti-china stories over the past few weeks, ever since the chinese threatened to call in the US debt when the US demanded the chinese revaluate the Yuan. More American propaganda being fed to the people, to make sure that China is slowly moved to the "axis of evil" category.
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The only thing that makes me sicker than the Chinese government is that the US supports them by
Re:Does anybody actually believe (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, if the US never traded with autocracies, there would never have been a US in the first place.
It's not very hard... (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone knows the password is "Joshua"... Just stick to the Chess simulation when you get inside the DoD servers or you could be absconded by the FBI in an unmarked panel van.
It doesn't make any sence... (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) That the Pentagon doesn't have a Windows box connected to the Internet with a public IP address.
(2) That the 'hackers' are smart-enough to actually hack into the Pentagon (ergo they are not script-kiddies).
Wouldn't these hackers be smart enough to originate these attacks from some-other hacked network via an anonymous proxy? (And then delete any logs that still might point to their activities.)
At the very least I would expect a simple IP spoofing to have taken place.
This was too easy, something is up.
Nothing's up (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me again when that happens. In the meantime - congrats, they probably found
Re:It doesn't make any sence... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are there some super-smart people in the military? Of course. Are there incompetant ones in positions of power as well? I don't know. Let's ask the Commander in Chief
Micro$hit? (Score:3, Funny)
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He eventually traced their attacks to a Chinese IP, after they hopped numerous machines in the process. He turn
I'm impressed (Score:5, Funny)
Air gaps (Score:2)
Still wondering what to do with that news (Score:2)
1) Everyone is scanning or hacking everyone else, big deal, get over it. And even my lowly servers get hit by port scanning and hack attempts every minute from US-based IPs, and believe it or not, some IPs are traced back to some
NSAKEY (Score:2, Informative)
What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
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This sort of issue could be fixed if the Pentagon switched from using windows based systems to using SELinux systems with mandatory smart card access.
Remember, there are 2 levels of privilege above administrator in windows, and there are 3 backdoor keys into windows. Microsoft's, the NSA's and who knows who has the third?
America's spineless greedy politicians (Score:2)
I'm no fan of politicians but if the citizens of a democratic nation don't stand up for anything, they are more despicable than the politicians.
Re:Unacceptable (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been the case since the first man beat up his neighbor and forced him to become his slave. This rich will ALWAYS be richer, but the poor increase their standard of living. Today being "poor" in the West means having a small tv, and a second hand car, a used fridge and electricity, and a menial job. 200 years ago it meant starvation, and it still does in some places. Your point is?
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Here in the US the middle class (who also do most of the voting) also pay proportionally the largest taxes and have the most difficulty in paying for college. Generally the middle class has to live on debt, the poor do not need to borrow thousands of dollars to go to college, and neither does the rich.
As popular as attacks on the rich have become in the 20th century, per
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HUZZAH! Wish I had mod points, I'd bump you that last step towards +5. People in the west don't know what it means to be poor. In the United States, you can dig through garbage on the street and still make a global living at about the 90% level! (meaning, 90% of the world is doing WORSE off than you)
Re:Unacceptable (Score:4, Insightful)
The line wasn't "the rich are richer," as you implied but rather "get richer" as in "increase wealth relative to the rest of society." It is well known that of the destabilizing influence large economic gaps have on societies. The creation of a permanent underclass is not conductive to democracies, nor productive economies. For instance, it's well known that the wealthy have better access to the legal system through being able to afford more and better lawyers, while the poor often have no access to legal council in civil settings, and inadequate council in criminal settings.
It's relative wealth, not absolute wealth that matters to the fabric of a society. Attempting to place emphasis on absolute wealth, while ignoring the very real effects of large relative wealth disparity is a well known trick of the wealthy to attempt distract the majority poor into supporting that are not in their economic self-interest.
You really should learn some socioeconomics.
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