China Removes Cyberwar Video, Denies Everything 179
jjp9999 writes "Anyone looking for the video clip showing the Chinese regime launching cyberattacks using script kiddie tactics was greeted with a message stating 'Error Page — This page does not exist anymore,' on the state-run TV website. The propaganda video, still available on YouTube, included a clip showing an unseen user launching a cyberattack against an Alabama-based website of the Falun Gong meditation practice. China's Defense Minister told the Washington Post via e-mail that the video was 'pure action of the producer,' adding that the 'Chinese military has never implemented any form of cyber attacks.' The statement is the common line given by the regime after they're tacked with launching a global cyberattack — including after GhostNet, Operation Aurora, Operation Night Dragon, and Operation Shady Rat were revealed."
Yeah right (Score:3)
Chinese military has never implemented any form of cyber attacks
But the Chinese equivalent of the NSA sure did....
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How can you say such things, China would never do something so outright illegal as to attack companies in the US. /sarcasm
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A cultural element of both China and Japan is that nothing is really bad, wrong, or immoral, unless you get publicly caught. That's not to say everyone embraces such ideology but it is pervasive in their cultures.
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As opposed to American corporate culture that says it's not even bad if you get publicly caught as long as you have enough political clout to make it go away (see Wall Street).
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American culture is not Wall Street culture. There most definitely is a massive divide there. Which really means, power has its perks. Hardly surprising. But not really topical either.
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It's not just Wall Street, it's pretty much any large corporation and large swaths of our government.
It doesn't pervade the rest of our culture so much, but it's worth keeping in mind one's own faults when criticizing others'
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I did. Re-read my original statement. The door clearly swung both ways and I made sure it wasn't an overly broad statement. Period.
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American culture is not Wall Street culture. There most definitely is a massive divide there
I'm afraid that's not really true, much as I'd like it to be. The proof is in the voting patterns: so many candidates get elected and reelected, even when they're known to be corrupt and worse, and even when they break all civilized boundaries in their campaigns. That tells me "Main Street culture" really doesn't much care about honesty, truth, justice or fair play. Sad, indeed.
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Don't be simple. I know America has its flaws, but comparing it to that sort of barbarism is way out of line.
In America, it doesn't matter if you get caught, so long as you make a metric fuckton of money in the process.
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You're confusing an empowered minority who are frequently sociopaths with American culture. America has no such cultural norm. In fact, in American, the norm is exactly opposite of this. That doesn't mean in any way, it doesn't happen here.
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"it's only illegal if you get caught" is a google suggestion. That alone suggests it's pretty pervasive.
We have the exact same saying in Germany. I'd say it's pretty much the norm in Western societies.
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Not true in the least. In the west that expression exists BECAUSE its not the norm. In the east, that expression exists because, "saving face" is so important.
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I'm sorry, but I see people breaking the law ALL DAY LONG. Whether it's jaywalking, speeding, drinking while under the influence, tax evasion, defrauding insurance companies, smoking pot ... the list goes on and on.
Whatever you think about the laws, there's no denying that virtually everybody has broken a law in the past without consequences.
Now that I think about it, the saying can be interpreted both ways. As a criticism AND as a rationalization.
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Breaking the law != being immoral. They tend to coincide, but there are plenty of immoral things that are legal, and plenty of illegal things that aren't immoral.
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I know that and I've argued the same on Slashdot many times. I also don't see what it has to do with the saying.
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It used to be that the major part of the American system was based on a moral code. However ever since Dewey and some others, 'pragmatism' (which, as a philosophy, has been distorted and pruned to now merely mean "the end justifies the means") has become the accepted value system for public decisions. Unfortunately the direct outcome of that value system is that there are no moral absolutes. If you can get away with something and not get caught, then it's all good.
(Note - I am not saying that pragmatism
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Protip: Sociopaths are MASSIVELY disproportionately represented in positions of power.
I was going to point this out. I completely agree.
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Ugh, God, seriously China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ugh, God, seriously China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly every word that comes out of Chinese officials' mouths is painful to listen to. If it served their purposes they would claim the sky is red, forbid anyone from discussing it, jail/torture/disappear those who dared to still say it was blue, and denounce other countries for meddling in their internal affairs by stating the obvious. And do it with a straight face and a clear conscience. If that government not fucking evil, I don't know what is and I'm sick of hearing their blatant bullshit and absolutist statements. They are simply a slightly more moderate and much larger version of North Korea, and without the cult of personality.
To be clear, I think the Chinese culture is rich and ancient, and that the common, thinking people there feel much the same when they witness their own government's bullshit. It's their political structure and those who populate it that need to die in a fucking fire.
Re:Ugh, God, seriously China? (Score:4, Insightful)
To be clear, I think the Chinese culture is rich and ancient, and that the common, thinking people there feel much the same when they witness their own government's bullshit. It's their political structure and those who populate it that need to die in a fucking fire.
I believe that most of that statement is probably true for the majority of people in the world. I live in the US and know that I certainly feel that way about our gov't. Except for the ancient culture part anyhow.
I know many people from Iran, Cuba, Russia, China, etc. This seems to be a common feeling among most of the people that we are told are evil.
Re:Ugh, God, seriously China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly there really isn't any comparing the US and Chinese government.
I make no excuses for the US gov't, but the US gov't is the obnoxious, occasionally destructive frat boy to the Chinese gov't's sociopathic homicidal con-man.
Worst part is that kind of government is a part of chinese culture, too. that's sort of how they've run the show for most of their history. it's fucking weird.
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True, but when I talk to the normal non-government person from China they don't feel the people of the US are out to get them or vice-verse. It truly amazes me how much of a divide there is between the people and the people who are supposed represent them.
So? (Score:2)
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You hit upon something I'm still pondering, which is the close connection of this absurd 'deny everything' policy of the Chinese government and the culture. I know plenty of Chinese nationals(I work with them remotely every day) and on an individual and personal level, their actions mirror mine: no tolerance for bullshit, responsibility, integrity and genuine goodwill for other people. I love and respect each one of them. But somehow their minds almost categorically do mental back flips when things become a
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I know it's baffled me for years. I spoke about it to some Iranians I know when Ahmadinejad was at Columbia. They thought he was a buffoon and virtually everything he said went against how they and there fellow countrymen felt. None of them thought of the American people as some kind of great evil, nor knew anybody who did. Yet the gov't of Iran has made their feelings well known. Don't get me wrong, the door swings both ways. I think the US actions regarding the Shah were appalling. And the US gov't has al
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Same experience here. I've worked with / trained Chinese workers, I've had Chinese professors, I've known Chinese students. Good people. I can't say the same for most of the South Americans I've met, even -- that is, the Colombians and Brasilians I've met were, unfortunately, pretty good examples of how those countries wound up with the sorts of governments they have had and have currently.. but the Chinese folks just really.. I don't know. You're right. I can't reconcile the Chinese people I've met
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The Chinese government sins bigger, but I'm not so sure there's no comparability. In the U.S. we have people in the in group getting a free pass on truly gigantic crimes while prosecutors resist the release of death row inmates after DNA testing proves their innocence. The official response to people not being able to afford health insurance is to make it illegal to not have health insurance. Increasingly, our police departments resemble paramilitary operations and operate as if they are above the law (and
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Great name for a band: "Sociopathic homicidal frat boys" :D
Re:Ugh, God, seriously China? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no comparison between the US and Chinese governments. Heck, I know a girl whose family is well connected politically in China and even she doesn't want to deal with the Chinese government. It's just far too corrupt and everyone only cares about themselves. The government is completely opaque and it's ridiculously easy to embezzle public money due to the lack of accountability and openness. And that's at the national level, at the local level it's even worse, especially in the countryside.
Just for one specific example, a drunk guy ran over and killed a couple of women late at night. When the police showed up, he said he was the mayor's son so what were they going to do about it. Fortunately, someone got it on video and it caused the people to protest and force him to go to jail (and for his father to apologize). But that guy's attitude is pervasive in the Chinese government's upper levels, with political power tending to pass from one generation to the next and having the ability to do almost anything and get away with it.
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Here's another: (really bad HTML layout, but hey). Here's [comcast.net] The gist of the story [latitude38.com].
In summary: It was around 9PM, and dark on Clear Lake in California. Bismarck Dinius and some friends were sitting on a sailboat, drifting with its running lights on. An off-duty deputy sheriff, Russell Perdock, admits to driving his 24 foot Baja 24 at 40 MPH in the dark (others say it was faster), and ran over the sailboat killing one of the people on board the sailboat.
The local DA charged Dinius with manslaughter, as he h
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Reading that made my BP jump 20 points.
nothing to own up to (Score:3)
This is a country that has a history of pointing at a deer and call it a horse [wikimedia.org], or more recently calling Minnie Mouse a "cat with large ears." [japanprobe.com] So why is this a surprise?
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Yes. i recommend that the Chinese government takes some PR consultants.
Other governments manage to whitewash their dirty laundry much better.
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What's worse is that even though communism has long been a boogeyman to America, Dick Nixon made it ok for us to deal with red China.
FUCK CHINA. They are our enemies. We're just sitting here letting them take us apart bite by bite. It's time for us to shut them out. We should close our ports to their ships, deport their people and refuse to pay their bills. What are they going to do? They're already at war with us.
Force them to step it up. We still have plenty of ICBMs we can launch that aren't yet i
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fucked up corrupt government that spends half of it's time inventing fantasies for masses is an ancient way of doing chinese politics, they're probably quite used to it.
anyhow, in this case - I think the video was fake to begin with, propaganda shit never meant to be seen outside china as it's like from a bad movie.
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When we refuse to bow down to any higher authority, we take the risk that someone else is going to do mean things to us, and we'll need to either declare war on them, do mean things back, or find other ways to try to convince them not to.
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I just wish I could have been a part of the days when your intentions were plainly written down on paper, signed, and then sent to the entity in question.
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Replace "script kiddie application" with "helicopter gunship" and "hack a Chinese university" with "annihilate an Iraqi vegetable market", and you have the ethical equivalency the OP was getting at.
So the chinese doing some computer hacking is the moral equivalent to the US murdering a bunch lot of Iraqis. Then I guess that would make the chinese massacring a bunch of tibetans the moral equivalent of the US nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Out of curiosity (as I wasn't born yet) did the US man up to Iran Contra? Or the attempts to overthrow South American nations?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair [wikipedia.org]
It looks like Reagan actually came out and admitted at least part of it, and there is some question as to whether he knew more than he admitted.
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Just man up and own it. For fuck's sake, it's just getting painful.
Prepare for more... discomfort. I don't understand it, but there is something that is lost in translation that makes the laughably ridiculous a reasonable thing to say for the Chinese. Surely they don't expect anyone to really believe such childish denials, after having been caught red-handed, for the umpteenth time, committing some nefarious act. So why do they do it?
Re:Ugh, God, seriously China? (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't see the video of a federal employee with "push button to attack Iranian nuclear facilities" on the screen in the background.
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Push button, attack Iran? Do I get any bacon out of the deal?
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The Beastie Boys could make it HUGE!
Fuck that, we need Limp Bizkit on this one!! That Fred Durst is so edgy!!!
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Ween pretty much did it already [youtube.com]
Re:Just man up and own it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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We're not the intended target of the lie. To China, the West is hostile to them. We already have a crappy opinion of their government, and they couldn't care less if our opinion got any worse.
The lie is for the Chinese people. If they can fool the Chinese people into believing this never happened, that helps them stay in power that much longer. In fact, if they can convince the Chinese peo
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The Chinese people have an even crappier opinion of their government than we do.
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Chinese speaker here (Score:3)
The gist of the 10 minutes:
1. Cyber warfare is an emerging worldwide threat
2. Viruses pose the largest current threat, Morris worm shown as example
2. Many countries in the world are developing their cyber warfare capabilities
3. Chinese cyber defenses are weak and ill-prepared compared to most of these countries
4. The US integrated a cyber warfare department into its air force in 2006, made up of computer experts and hackers
5. The US has been using its world-leading cyber security abilities to its advantage
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Also, during the specific part where it shows the "hacking GUI"
[previous segment explains what trojans and backdoors are and how they function]
Narrator: There are many ways to carry out a cyber attack -- there are "hard" methods and "soft" methods.
General explains: Soft methods include logic bombs and email obstruction, and other common methods of internet damage. (clip shows the "hacking GUI" with the ip address we're all worked up about) Hard methods are those that damage or destroy an enemy's internet ha
"You don't need to see his ID": (Score:2)
The General was quoted as: "These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along."
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Forget it Jake, it's China (Score:2)
This is amusing, but not particularly scary. Everyone expects this kind of behavior and lies out of the Chinese government, and acts accordingly. It's never the covert actions of our enemies that scare me *nearly* as much as the covert actions of my own government. After all, you can build walls to protect against an *outside* threat.
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We are at war with Eastasia (Score:3)
We've always been at war with Eastasia.
Tiananmen Square (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they go to China, and in Tiananmen Square they have a plaque that says "On This Site in 1989, Nothing Happened"
China MoD statement (Score:2)
China's Defense Minister told the Washington Post via e-mail that the video was 'pure action of the producer,' adding that the 'Chinese military has never implemented any form of cyber attacks.'
Of course, what they don't tell you is that there are cyber units/departments in other ministries of the government. So they could be telling the complete truth when they say that the Chinese military has never implemented cyber attacks. Notice that they never said the Chinese GOVERNMENT has never implemented cyber attacks.
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I take it you're not an american and therefore not versed in doublespeak:
YES WE CAN
Yes, actually I am American. An American polisci grad student who has done a research paper involving China's cyberwarfare capabilities, in fact.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman." (Score:5, Insightful)
"There is definitive proof that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction."
"We do not torture."
"They started it."
Bald-faced lies, the lingua franca of government.
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Humans lie all the time. :(
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Honest! (Score:2)
Bald-faced lies, the lingua franca of government.
Indeed. Quite opposed to corporations, trade unions, churches, scientists, public interest groups, police departments, community organizers, universities, charities, and individuals, all of which advance and defend their interests with 100% honesty and lamb-like innocence.
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In other words, where there is power, there are lies.
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The weak lie too. In fact even animals do (such as give warning sounds when there's no danger to scare other pack members away from food). Then there are pitcher plants, which lure insects to their doom by emitting a good (for an insect) smell. And viruses spread by fooling ribosomes to mistake viral RNA for that of the cell.
Where there is life, there are lies.
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I'm going to try to log into your account with the password "trustno1". You have 30 seconds to change your password.
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The point is not that you shouldn't be upset by these revelations. The point is that you should already be outraged. If you were in any way surprised by these actions you are terribly naive.
Not surprising... (Score:3)
There was an sometimes amusing, usually frustrating, that seems to be somewhat unique to Chinese politicians. They'll publicly make baldfaced lies. There will be overwhelming evidence and they'll still blatantly deny it. Our politicians lie like hell, but they're more tactful about it. Once the secret is out they'll do a little tap dance to avoid actually addressing the issue. But not there, they'll just keep lying about it until everyone forgets about it, they're forced to resign or they end up in jail.
So it's not surprising in the least that they're denying this video. And the best part is that they'll deny these attacks and then gloat about it all behind our backs.
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The difference is that in China, if you dare to actually say that they're lying, you're liable to get reeducated [wikipedia.org], house-arrested, arrested, or just plain old shot.
Not Really Surprising... (Score:2)
DMCA? (Score:2)
Think they'll send a DMCA take-down notice to YouTube next?
Confucius says.. (Score:2)
And now they're banning Gaga and Beyonce (Score:2)
From The Article
China has banned 100 songs from being featured on websites, barring artists ranging from Lady Gaga to the Backstreet Boys apparently for being out of tune with the country's cultural authorities. The ministry of culture said it aimed to regulate the "order" of the Internet music market, adding songs that "harm the security of state culture must be cleaned up and regulated under the law". The notice, issued o
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Ha! You're so right! And those stupid 27 states that are suing the Federal government over Obamacare, what a bunch of astroturfed morons.
What do state attorneys know about law anyway.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/17/list-of-states-suing-over-obamacare/ [heritage.org]
Let me know when you're ready to talk about issues, instead of demonizing those who have come to different conclusions than you.
Resistance... (Score:2)
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...the US government will probably believe China.
For politicial and economic reasons it has to "believe" China. Whether it privately actually believes China is a completely different matter.
compelled to believe (Score:2)
Diplomatic "courtesy" requires the US to believe China. Privately, everyone knows that a deer is a deer. [wikimedia.org]
Re:who cares. (Score:5, Informative)
The video ran on Chinese STATE-RUN television. That means that some hack in the massive Chinese censorship bureaucracy vetted this video and decided to show it to the Proletariat anyway. This entire summary is about how the Chinese pulled it from their STATE-RUN website and put up a message saying, "What? Who? Us? What video?" If this were just some random thing uploaded by Falun Gong supporters then your argument would hold water. Instead it's something that China ran on their-- let me say it again-- STATE-RUN television news, and Falun Gong supporters saw it and reuploaded it to the wider web to say, Ha ha, look how stupid China is.
Imagine the Tea Party creates a relatively boring propaganda video about government spending, but in the background for 3 seconds of one shot you can see Michelle Bachmann snorting cocaine. Someone at Huffington Post catches this, copies the video, and uploads it to their website saying, "Wow, busted!" The Tea Party turn around and delete the video from their website and claim it was never there, and then you come along on Slashdot and claim the whole thing was a HuffPo propaganda hit piece and that they orchestrated the whole thing.
In short, the Chinese Politburo would like to send you their sincerest thanks for backing up the party line.
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And that hacks' kidneys, liver, and lungs are now available for transplant.
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Bad analogy, since the hacker in the background is obviously following orders. Some random person in the background snorting cocaine would obviously be doing it for their own reasons, not because they were ordered to (which would give the tea party credibility in saying "they weren't doing it on our behalf"). Anyway, his analogy wasn't
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and once again, lets make this perfectly clear: the video footage in question was provided by a pro-falun gong website, showing depictions of attacks against falun gong sites.
No, you are wrong. Either you didn't read the article, didn't understand the article, or are deliberately spreading misinformation.
1.) The full video was provided by cntv.cn, which is the video archive of the state-controlled China Central Television network (originally at http://military.cntv.cn/program/jskj/20110717/100139.shtml )
2.) The gleeful commentary about the slip-up in the content of the video was provided a pro Falun Gong website.
3.) Even the Chinese government did not blame Falun Gong for the vi
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I wasn't aware that Falun Gong was China's primary trading partner.
But, seriously, China has ample reasons to exploit security holes to conduct industrial and military espionage. They realize, as the US does, that the trade agreement is overlayed on top of *the* major rivalry of the 21st century.
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I watched the original on cntv.cn yesterday before they took it down. I'm not exactly sure how Falun Gong was able to hack cntv.cn.
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Perhaps that is because maybe it wasn't the US at all?
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the same person that is against government b/c it is by definition incompetent and can't do anything as good as the private sector AT THE SAME TIME firmly believes the government runs secret programs
Clearly, they are planted by the government to discredit the groups working against the government by having other people planted by the government point out the crazy contradictions that they believe in.
We're on to you!