The Undeclared "Cyber Cold War" With China 260
First time accepted submitter lacaprup writes "Chinese-based hacking of 760 different corporations reflects a growing, undeclared cyber war. From giants like Intel and Google to unknowns like iBahn, the Chinese hackers are accused of stealing everything isn't nailed down. Simply put, it is easier and cheaper to steal rather than develop the legal way. China has consistently denied it has any responsibility for hacking that originated from servers on its soil, but — based on what is known of attacks from China, Russia and other countries — a declassified estimate of the value of the blueprints, chemical formulas and other material stolen from U.S. corporate computers in the last year reached almost $500 billion"
It's impossible to blame China (Score:5, Insightful)
Every black hat is probably running their operations through proxies in China these days so that the Western companies they break into will just say "damn dirty Chinese!" and never suspect someone in Europe or maybe just a few blocks away. China is a jurisdictional black hole.
Undeclared? (Score:5, Insightful)
Undeclared my ass. It's in the media, it's widely known, and pretty much the only rule is not to do something to the other side's infrastructure that kills people directly or gets too much of the population upset. That's like calling the intelligence war undeclared because the sides don't admit that they try to get plans of the other side's military hardware--only more so. We don't declare war, and this isn't a physical war, and there are certain proportionality requirements--and we argue for a pretension of deniability, but not plausible deniability.
Been there, seen that. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably going to sound racist, when I don't really intend it to. It's more "culturist" than anything else.
I work for a post-secondary institution with a large international student program. Most of our international students come from China, and when we break down the stats, the Chinese students are the most likely students to plagiarize others work, both in our online learning management system and in our face to face classroom environments.
What's more, they make no effort to hide their "enhanced group work" skills from their instructors. We've asked several of the students about this behaviour and have been told "that's how things work in China. It's commonplace there."
So it doesn't surprise me that Chinese hackers are trying to steal information from western companies.
Re:It's not a cyber cold war (Score:4, Insightful)
U.S. propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
U.S. has every time shown that they ignore any good practices and just abuse when they can. I do not trust Iran any more, but since U.S. lies about their tactics too, why should I trust them either? Lieing to me makes you an asshole.
Fix this once and for all (Score:0, Insightful)
Cut the damm cable
Re:Didn't the chinese adapt cracking from the Stat (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, patent violations were an American concept back in the day (see Hollywood). Countries (and companies) on the way up view patents as a hindrance, shackling their energy and creativity. Countries on the way down view them as a benefit, holding on to their accumulated wealth and power even once they're no longer earning it.
Re:It's not a cyber cold war (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been that way for a very long time, long before computers were penetrated to gather trade secrets. For a long time the two major Communist nations in this world, the USSR and the People's Republic of China, did not have the resources to develop many advanced things. The Russians cloned our bombers that landed in Soviet territory, with the only differences being switching to metric units for things like sheetmetal gauge as opposed to SAE units. The US government tried very hard to keep particularly sensitive, new weapons out of Russia's hands during World War II, and out of China's hands during Korea and Vietnam.
Unfortunately now, we've decided to send our processes themselves to China. Since they're not interested in maintaining respect for intellectual property, we're giving them the very tools they need to best us.
In short, or own short-sighted greed is actively leading to our downfall as we speak.
Re:Didn't the chinese adapt cracking from the Stat (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, and this is probably the biggest one imho, the government has privatized everything. All other considerations aside, if you have digital and classified documents in a lot of third parties' hands, you're going to open yourself up to a lot of attack vectors. All in all, it's a nightmare thinking about keeping a network that includes every military contractor secure.
Re:It's impossible to blame China (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean technologies that China is already producing for the USA? No R and D needed when you are already doing the manufacturing.
Not stolen, shared (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Didn't the chinese adapt cracking from the Stat (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, because Europe is just a thriving example of greatness right now.
Re:It's not a cyber cold war (Score:5, Insightful)
What?
That's the exact same thing as saying, because your safe can be cracked, then your trade secrets that you held in it are in plain site. In other words, because someone was able to steal them, then they are not covered.
Requiring a spy to steal your details, or for you entire computer system to be hacked in certainly a reasonable-enough effort at protecting your trade secrets.
People should be stopped from illegal downloads as it is stealing, but the level of focus definitely makes no sense in comparison to other issues facing the nation. The entire entertainment industry has a nonsensical amount of power, but that does not change the lunacy of the rest of your--hopefully--sarcastic point.
This war is hundreds of years old. (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's perpetrated by every nation on the planet.
It's no secret that the Industrial Revolution got a kickstart in the US via "stolen IP." The legend is that Samuel Slater memorized drawings across the pond in Blighty and came here with them in his head.
Another example would be dumpster diving at your competitor's company. Cutting up start strips from stamping operations is not because you want them to fit in the recycling dumpster better. The same for shredding code printouts and printed spreadsheets.
To suddenly be surprised that this is being done electronically on a systematic scale is to be utterly ignorant of history. And frankly, singling out China smells of hypocrisy, especially after two decades of US manufacturing companies willingly transferring their core manufacturing to China completely oblivious to the long term effects.
Why reinvent the wheel from scratch when you can simply snag the wheel.dwg from your competitor's computer?
--
BMO
secure your stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that hard to find a balance between security and usability. At least try. When I read about:
* un-encrypted data on portable devices getting lost[1]
* tapes being swiped in people's cars[2]
* servers with egregiously unsecured login portals[3]
I'm not sure why people aren't just allowing google to index their entire infrastructure. Really. It would be cheap backup and really easy to find your stuff. Sure, 0-days happen, mistakes are made, admins are not infallible but I can't blame the Chinese (or whoever) for picking the low-hanging fruit when it's been places so close to the ground.
[1] - http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=6572 [phiprivacy.net]
[2] - http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Tricare-patient-data-lost-in-car-burglary-2195822.php [mysanantonio.com]
[3] - www.dataprotectioncenter.com/antivirus/sophos/second-dutch-security-firm-hacked-unsecured-phpmyadmin-implicated/
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Didn't the chinese adapt cracking from the Stat (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to be picky, but there are a number of places other than Europe right now that aren't really suffering during this global depression.
Re:It's not a cyber cold war (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't ever happen. If we tried that, Britain would come tapping us on the shoulder, and presenting a bill for all the trade secrets we lifted during the Industrial Revolution from them.
What China is doing to us is the same thing we've been done to other nations, albeit when this country was younger.
Re:Welcom to Shitty Wok (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure US businesses would be just as happy to substitute melamine to make an extra buck too. They've been substituting trans fats in our foods for ages, after all, even though those are proven to cause all kinds of health problems, but hydrolyzed vegetable oil is much cheaper than butter so corporations can improve their profits by using it.
The only way you're not going to have companies feeding you poison to make a buck is if there's a strong government that prohibits the practice and hold offenders accountable when caught. Pretty soon, when the Republicans take over the government, they'll eliminate the FDA (they're talking a lot about it already), so we'll get to enjoy melamine in our food too before long. (Of course, if the Democrats could help in the process and spin it somehow to blame the Republicans, the Dems will happily go right along with them.)
Re:Where are you getting your facts, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because of the myth that Communism wasn't able to function at all. It did function but it didn't lead to a lot of happy people, nor a lot of variety or quality in products (I recall seeing an ad for "The Fridge" on Soviet TV, so advertised because it was the only fridge they made and it was in surplus at the time), The USSR managed to rebuild the Soviet Union from its decimated state after WWII back to being an industrial powerhouse, world power, etc. It did so at a massive human cost of course (measured in millions of people), and I am not saying it was a good thing but dismissing them and their version of the communist system casually out of hand is a mistake.
The US basically outspent the USSR and active sought to destroy its economy, leading to the failure of Communism in the end. Some of the economic problems you face today in the US likely stem from that massive overspending in fact as it no doubt contributed heavily to your national debt.
I think its a mistake to dismiss China in the same way. They are huge, they have a growing economy, they have massive manufacturing capabilities, and they are capable of independent research and discovery. The fact that they are playing catchup to the US at the moment, doesn't mean they might not surpass you at some point. Imagine how the US citizenry's morale is going to crash when the leading innovations in science and technology start coming from China instead of the US. What if the first mission to Mars comes from China instead of the US?
Complacency and Hubris come at a cost.
Re:Didn't the chinese adapt cracking from the Stat (Score:5, Insightful)
Though the strange thing with "financial experts" seems to be that you will allways find another "expert" who tells you the exact opposite of what the previous guy said.
I have the feeling those finance gurus are more close to fortune-tellers than to scientists.
I'm sure you're correct about that feeling. "Economics" simply isn't a real science, it's pseudoscience as it doesn't produce any theories that can actually be tested. Unfortunately, our societies depend greatly on economics, so even though it's really not much different than shamans trying to cure diseases with chants and incantations and potions, it's the best we've got.
Re:Welcom to Shitty Wok (Score:5, Insightful)
Am usually right there with y'all in demanding a complete redo on IP law, but not here.
Take anything we do well in America. Trace it down to materials science or some other obscure technological detail.
Now, *GIVE* that info to another country. Whoosh, there go a billion dollars of competitive advantage, or whatever the equivalent engineering/prototyping cost is.
In the cases of media, biology and pharm, it's a cost that some corp won't recoup. Bad juju. But in the case of weapons, armor and nuclear reactor designs, it's a cost that keeps china from marching on another nation. It doesn't take a huge amount of paranoia to suspect that Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Japan remain sovereign partly because China isn't capable of our level of weaponry, submarine reactor longevity, space-based intelligence, etc.
There's no easy answer, and I'm not buying the cyberwarfare jingoism rants, but taking cybersecurity more seriously is important.