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Chinese Government Implicated in DoS on US Site 252

HP LoveJet writes "US maintainers of sites dedicated to falun gong, a meditation technique whose practitioners are being systematically harassed by Chinese government authorities, say that recent attacks on their servers are traceable to--guess who?--the Chinese government. Scary stuff. "
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Chinese Government Implicated in DoS on US Site

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  • Who really cares? i mean really what the heck could the chinese really do to the site in the first place, its not like they produce anything or even have any important data. this hack is meaningless except for the fact that the 'chinese government' if it was them, was assaulting American property. And then still who cares like the Falun Gong sect is any better than the chinese government their a proslitising religous cult for gods sake!! And why do you think the chinese government has been cracking down on them they are a potent political force. The chinese communist party tries to put down any major polical opposition, and the Falun Gong sect was protesting, WHY you ask? who knows? if any one does enlighten me.
  • Well, we killed 4 people, so we'll give 4.5 mil to your government, who assuredly won't give any to you, and will probably even use it against you. Please don't be mad at us anymore.
    I think you can figure out how to email me ;)
  • uhm...

    there were many successful and popular leaders in the United States who were "uneducated".

    and, yes, i would hire a high school student to a big company if he/she were qualified.
  • Is it a crime in China to use government resources to preserve the government. It'd be really shady if they had used computers with different IP addresses rather than their own. Instead, by using their own, they're saying quite loudly that they don't appreciate the attempts at spreading propoganda via the internet.
  • when one government steals from, attacks (electronically), and denounces another country, isn't that an act of war?
  • maybe they're testing their bounds.

    maybe they've realized that America will do nothing to them as long as we buy their sh*t.

  • if you think that the Chinese government can't hack, then you're kidding yourself...
  • I just noticed that www.rangzen.com, a site which promotes Independence for Tibet, is down today.

    Not only are they down, it seems that their name servers at netdirect.net are down, and thus netdirect.net site itself, and every domain they serve is out.

    I noticed this a few hours ago, and they are not back up yet.

    Coincidence?
  • Sorry if my original post wasn't as clear as it could have been. I was merely pointing out that while I certainly believe in Universal Human Rights (which includes such things as respect for diversity and dissent), the government of China doesn't necessarily agree with me. The reason that they can politically afford to do so is that they can suppress dissent brutally and get away with it due to the relatively monocultural nature of their society (due to powerful historical forces).

    Heck, it's absolutely WRONG for a country to oppress its own citizenry in such a manner, but there is little we can do about it without overt or covert conflict. There is a real and deep disagreement, which we would do well to recognize and not paper over with talk of "constructive engagement." But moral indignation alone won't make anything better.

    I'm not saying that any group of political elites is necessarily more kind-hearted than the other. We have our fair share of skeletons in our closets. Just that in diverse societies today, all but the most ruthless of politicians have to accept some degree of diversity as a fact of life.
  • A few things to consider.

    1. The article is in the Boston Globe, whose reputation is impeachable. Recall that a few of their star columnists and reporters were passing off fiction as fact.

    2. The article relies on falun gong for the "facts" about these atacks originating from the Chineese government.

    Consider the possibility that the Falun Gong are playing on anti-Chineese sentiment in the US in their efforts against the Chineese government.
  • I'm sorry, this deserves a response...
    1. The United States committed genocide against the entire Native American population. A large and diverse population that had grown for many thousands of years mostly died out within a few generations.
      First off, we need to put something in proper perspective. Up until this century, genocide was a regular and accepted part of war. I don't care what part of the world your forefathers hail from, EVERY race embraced genocide. The only way to ensure victory was to kill your enemy...and his children. I'm not saying it's ok, but singling one group out for that type of warfare is unfair. History is a bloody, violent thing. What isn't acceptable is that type of behavior today. We know better now...

      Oh, and my wife is Northern Sioux (Osage). My children are half Osage. I can assure you that the beliefs, legends, and society built up by her ancestors was never destroyed. Badly damaged, yes. But never destroyed.
    2. The United States imported humans from Africa and sold them as slaves on the open market. And unlike most other slave societies, the Americans kept a slaves' child as a slave as well; making an escape from slavery in one's family all but impossible.
      This is a twisted, politically correct view on history. 95% of the slaves imported into North America were brought in while we were still a British colony. The importing of slaves was banned shortly after we threw the Brit's out. Now, it's true that slavery lived on for a long time, but it was tolerated simply to keep the nation from breaking up. My own ancestors, who hailed from Maine, fought with the Mass. regiments in the civil war. My own ancestors put their lives on the line to free those slaves. Condemning all of America for slavery simply shows your ignorance of American history.
    3. The United States stole a BIG chunk of Mexico, and then renamed it "Texas"
      Once more, you're displaying a serious lack of historical knowledge. Texas declared it's independence from Mexico, and fought hard for that independence. A short time later, the free and independent Republic of Texas petitioned the United States to accept it into the union. Mexico believed the US was behind the secession of Texas, and took a generally hostile stance to anything American. This led to the Mexican-American war. When we won that war, the Mexicans surrendered much of the now-Southwestern US to American control. They started it...but we won. You want me to be ashamed of that? I don't think so.
    4. The United States stole a chunk of Columbia, renamed it Panama," and built the Panama Canal. To this day we're scheming to maintain control of this vital shipping way.
      Ok, were sorta guilty of this one, but at least put it in the proper perspctive. We wanted to build the canal, but the Columbians wanted too much money for the right of way. So we found a sympathetic bunch of Panamanian seccessionists and...umm...armed them. We didn't take it, we just aided a revolution. And how are we "scheming" to keep it? AFAIK, we're getting ready to hand it over to the Panamanian government.
    5. The United States stole Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, etc.
  • That's true, I hadn't thought of that. But then, how clueful are the conservative politicians who are going to rant and rave about the "new red menace" when this hits the Rush Limbaugh show?

    To expand a little on the "Free tibet" theory, the notion is that enemies of teh Chinese state spoof a Chinese assault on American property. All the Vladmir Zhirinovsky-esque republican nationalists go ballistic and China is severed from our good graces forever (or at least until WWIII).

    -konstant
  • by Stonehand ( 71085 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @10:16AM (#1772271) Homepage
    Errrrrrrrr, just who *exactly* in the US Gov't do you thing would go after China for this? Think about it. We just reaffirmed their MFN status, after all. Despite all the hordes of scandals --

    * Organized illicit campaign contributions traceable w/ very high probability to PRC military intelligence.

    * US-built machine tools redirected to (military-related production) sites that they *specifically denied in advance* would be the recipients.

    * Mass import of arms, such as illegal shipments of SKS rifles traced to PRC arms companies with very close ties to Beijing.

    * Deliberate violations of US nat'l security through leakage of information regarding rocket launches, through Hughes (and, IIRC, maybe Lockheed).

    * Theft of nuclear secrets, through suborning of PRC sympathizers with access to classified data.

    * Repeated harrassment, threats and refusal to recognize reality regarding Taiwan/ROC.

    And... we're trying to be all buddy-buddy to them, partly out of alleged guilt for nailing their Embassy. Frankly, I'd rather bail out our ex-foes based in Moscow, and ostracize Beijing. But no... This is a nation which has repeatedly voiced the threat that it could hit LA with a nuclear-armed ICBM. It is *not* like this Gov't will stand up to them.
  • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @10:21AM (#1772273) Homepage Journal

    Considering that this is happening at the same time as mass arrests, a warrent for the group's leader, and confiscation of literature, it's not too surprising that the party would want the web sites torn down as well.

    The Chinese government considers this group to be the biggest threat to it's rule ever.

    Their level of paranoia is so high for 3 reasons: 1. the group has 10 million more members than the communist party. 2. Since it is based on traditional Chinese ideas, it cannot denounce it as western contamination. 3. The last two dynasties in China fell shortly after the formation of similar groups.

    It doesn't matter if point 3 is superstition or not. The communist party knows that many people will believe that the group's existance means they will soon fall.

    Desperation makes people do stupid things.

  • Right. The primary interest of the Party is to preserve its own power: this is the basis for the traditional Marxist opposition to religion, for religions generally postulate a separate authority beyond the temporal. Religions that are allowed to persist (and, if memory serves, five or so are officially sanctioned by the PRC), are generally watched in the interests of maintaining power. All that bit about "opiate of the masses" and superstition is largely a red herring.

    That means pre-emptively cracking down on all perceived threats. Any organization that can mobilize that number, and is led by an independent who apparently has some degree of charisma, matches that description.
  • China's been this way long before 1984.

  • Alexander the Great conquered the Medeterranian before he was 17.

    that was an empire, not a big company.
  • Okay, I guess I wasn't totally clear on your original point; nevertheless, the fact that disagreement could lead to conflict is not a reason to avert our eyes. I believe, strongly, that if we do not actively condemn such behavior, than we are implicitly condoning it. And if that leads to conflict, then I believe that the freedom of my fellow man is a cause worth fighting for.

    Nowadays, though, it seems as though I am in the minority in America, as well as the West in general. We continue to, as you said, paper over these differences in the name of commerce. After all, a market of 1 billion chinese consumers makes it very difficult for the moral concerns to outweigh the economic ones. Hell, we'll sell ourselves down the river in the name of a quick buck, let alone the average chinese citizen.

    Maybe I'm getting more cynical as I get older, but it seems clearer and clearer to me that Kruschchev was right when he noted that when it came time to hang the West, a Western businessman would sell him the rope.
  • You know, you might want to check the details of Slashdot's moderation system before you label it "censorship." You might also want to check out what Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel did for a living.
    Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
  • I think its accepted that the Chinese government conducts numerous activities which suck. The fact of the matter is, what can we do about it ? Start a war ? The US government is not so quick to take up arms in the face of a formidable enemy.

    ...and in any event our government conducts espionage all over the world, even possibly in the US (eschelon), makes military threats towards everyone, and supports large US corporations such as Nike and Disney whom manufacture overseas often through the use of near slave labor practices which most certainly violate a persons human rights. I also do recall a few times when federal and state government agencies incited bloody masacres on US soil (Waco TX, Ruby Ridge).




  • they should stick to harrasing their own citizens.
  • No, I don't want to censor you. The current moderation setup is not censorship. I'd just want to rate my opinion that your post looks like a troll.

    Call it "troll" if you want, just another neat name for censorship. Every organization in history has a name for people that are censored (see "terrorist", "deviant", etc...)

    And if the Romans had managed to crush Christianity, we'd probably have never gotten the idea that fusion reactors were possible. The Christians in the so-called "Dark" ages worked a lot harder on replacing manpower with machinepower (windmills and watermills) than the Romans did, because the Romans had gotten addicted to slavery.

    Copernic, Galileo, Darwin, etc... science has always been the victim of religion.
  • After everything we've seen China do, and everything that we *haven't* seen them do, why does this come as a surprise? Wake up, it's happening everywhere everyday...

    Dan
  • by Anonymous Coward
    The US government too should stick to harassing their own citizens.
  • I read this yesterday on Wired..

    Apparently they're trying to syn-flood the two sites; one attack failed, the other didn't..

    Guess which site is running Windows?

    I'm not an expert on this, but isn't it possible to syn-flood with a spoofed IP address? Just to play devil's advocate, this wouldn't necessarily mean that it's the Chinese doing this, am I right?
  • It's just some deluded "Free Tibet" American rich-kid-larva spoofing the IP addresses on his/her packet. I don't think the Chinese are dumb enough to aggravate our national sovereignty just now. Vicious, yes, but not stupid. Stupidity is mostly reserved to the crusading middle-american script kiddies.

    -konstant
  • Sorry, but if you think anything Janet Reno has done comes close to the actions of a totalitarian government like China's, then you're sadly mistaken. The very fact that you can sit there and criticize the government (albeit anonymously), puts the lie to the notion that the two are in any way alike.

    I don't like everything the U.S. government has done and is doing, either, but there's a world of difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

    Kythe
    (Remove "x"'s from

  • Mmmmm....okay, China is a large, homogeneous culture, unlike the West. I'm with you there. And we should try to understand political differences in terms of cultural differences. So far, so good. Where I must disagree with you however, is where you suggest:

    Accepting differences is just a matter of acknowledging a reality one could do little about.

    and:

    While I personally believe that the future belongs to diversity and multicultural cooperation, I also see that the Chinese don't necessarily agree. As long as they stay in their corner and don't mess with any of us, it doesn't have to get ugly.

    The problem I have is that you have essentially denied the universality of human rights. We believe that tolerance of others is okay for us, but because the Chinese have a different culture, they don't really have to tolerate differences--in fact, they are totally within their rights to crush these people, or any other domestic group or individual, on a whim.

    As soon as we allow that a different cultural background is an an acceptable reason for a government to harass, imprison, torture, and murder its citizens, well, then we basically set sail off into a sea of moral relativism wherein NOTHING is ever really bad or wrong.

    Don't get me wrong--we can and should try to understand and appreciate cultural differences. But, there is a difference between understanding something and accepting that thing. We should not accept this notion that somehow human rights are this peculiar thing that can only be enjoyed by westerners.

    I don't accept that the Chinese government's actions are somehow okay because they're, y'know, CHINESE. It is enlightening to see how crappy this argument is (it was gospel for my anthro. profs, BTW) when you use the same logic to try to suggest that lynchings by the Klan are really okay, because, after all, they're an inevitable part of the culture of the Southern/Midwestern United States, and that we should all learn to understand, appreciate, and accept them.
  • Actually, I don't think they should be "harrassing" their own citizens, either.

    Kythe
    (Remove "x"'s from
  • Just to play devil's advocate, but I wouldn't put it beyond the chinese authorities to have a go. They could always make the same claim that you did in their defense. Also, what's a Free-Tibet-type attacking a potential destabiliser of China for? In the agent-provocateur role it's stll useless. Oh blah.



    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • To quote from the article:

    In addition, someone tried to gain access to the server, pretending to be a legitimate webmaster, and in the process left an Internet address, he said.


    The DoS attacks were not the ones leaving the IP-address .. someone just tried to simply log on to the machine, failed and had his/her IP-address logged. This still doesn't mean that the Chinese were doing it, since I would definitely not use my own computer to directly connect to the machine I want to break in to.

    Whether or not they were stupid enough to use one of their own machines to just try to log in, remains to be seen.


    --
  • What about spoofed ip's too? If anyone could spoof an ip, it'd be a ministry devoted to the net. Why wouldn't they spoof a different ip? Couldn't some else have spoofed their's?

  • Actually religion is really a form of governement, just like democracy or dictatorship. It is a kind of dictatorship were the rulers hide themselves behind "God" or whatever divinity is suited for them to rule other mortals. As for Falun Gong it is another dangerous sect which profess that the end of the world is close... it is ruled by one guru. They look much more dangerous to me than the present Chinese governement. Never forget that the first mass genocide were organised by religious zealots, and I fear 1 billion religious zealots who believe the world is coming to an end soon. So as chocking as it might be I support the Chinese governement on this issue (flame protection : on)

  • Gawd, all these propaganda mouthpieces for the dictatorship, and me without my moderator access.

    Personally, I suspect that if you don't understand why freedom of religion is important, you won't really understand how to put together a democracy that doesn't collapse into dictatorship like a three dollar suitcase the way Weimar Germany collapsed into Nazi Germany, or even what a real democracy is...

    Why should we believe all these statements about Falun Gong from people who apparently want expanded government authority to deal with religions they don't like?


    Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita

  • > You cannot pay for a life.

    Tell that to an insurance company.
  • > The group was founded just seven years ago by a
    > man with high school education. He now lives in
    > a spacious estate in (I believe) New Jersey.

    Shouldn't the chinese government ban Microsoft software, then? ;) In any event, this doesn't sound like a threat to the chinese people.

    > The man claims he needs no medication and
    > suffers no ailments.

    Again, some guy too stupid to take a penecillan shot sounds less-than-threatening. How does this have anything to do with China's welfare? We have Christian Scientists in the U.S. who fail to take medicine, and with the exception of child endangerment no one cares.

    > He claimed Earth is in a volatile state and
    > might explode in 1997 or 98. He now says he can
    > delay the end of world for as long as 30 years.

    So...he's an idiot claiming to have super powers. Big deal.

    > His methods of meditation can lift a
    > practitioner above water. Yet, when his
    > followers surrounded ZhongNanHai (where Chinese
    > leaders live) they failed to surround the fourth
    > side -- a lake.

    There's a yogi meditation college is southeastern Iowa that claims to be able to levitate. Not many people believe them, but with the possible exception of Janet Reno no one wants to ban the group for being a national security threat.


    I find it interesting that you would support democracy in China, but fail to support the rights of this (by your descriptions) harmless group to practice its nonsense in peace.
  • So you want to censor me ? And what about freedom of speech ?

    Freedom of religion is one thing, but there is a line between religion and political weapons, and Falun Gong is walking on this thin line. Sure you are free to be Christian, but not to burn heretics. They should be free to do their gymnastics, but when they try to gain political power, infiltrate governement agencies and manipulate foreign press, they are a real threats. The Chinese governement is definitely a dictatorship, but Falun Gong will be even worse if they succeed in taking over the country (don't be fooled, they are not just a bunch of peaceful Asian hippies, like every sect they have a "higher" goal decided by the guru).

    My take is that if the roman had succeded in crushing the Christian sect at its beginning, we would already have fusion reactors by now, skipping 1000 years of middle age, inquisition and relious zealotry.
  • Well, I'm an Aussie, so personally, I don't care, but I think it's a) stupid & immature by the Chinese, and b) paranoia by the USA. I mean, oh my God, a DoS ... who cares ?!?
  • HMMM... I've never heard any Christians "make such a big fuss about Buddhism, Taoism, etc."

    Have you been watching Falwell again Mr. Coward?

  • It's been reported by American journalists that the US is giving the money DIRECTLY to the families of the jounalists (and for the last time Core Dump, they are not spies).
    I never said they were. You are halfway correct - they were journalists.
    And no matter who the money is given to, you cannot buy a life.
    I think you can figure out how to email me ;)
  • Well, by trivial, I meant that conceeding them would give China somewhat better relations with first world countries and they're unlikely to suffer greatly because of it.

    On Taiwan, I suspect that their reasons for asserting that the island is a part of the PRC (and how Taiwan asserts that China is a part of Taiwan) is mostly a matter of face. IMHO, the Taiwanese are beginning to get a popular democratic government with leaders who don't care, and people who don't care. Thus the recent move to assert Taiwanese sovereignity at the expense of losing their claim to mainland China. Taiwan is doing well enough without China these days anyway. 'Course, Red China's leaders have acted pretty weird in the past, so I don't see why they'd think that policies regarding Taiwan would carry over to Tibet all of the sudden.

    Tibet, it seems to me, would have been better handled by using it as a buffer state, much as the Soviet Union did with most of eastern Europe. Defend their borders for them, but maintain that it's an independent country, and let them act independently so long as it doesn't damage the buffer policy. This would not be perfect, obviously, but the Chinese have really mucked up the situation. The money they spend on oppressing the Tibetians (not all of whom are unhappy) could be better spent, from China's POV on a ballistic missile submarine program, making their need for Tibetian launch sites irrelevant and strengthening their military globally.

    But boy am I glad that China's navy is as lousy as it is.
  • If Taiwan were to assert its sovereignty (which it nearly did a few days ago), then it would open the door to Tibet possibly declaring its sovereignty. Unless China could quicky militarity crush the rebellion in Tibet, other regional powers such as India or Pakistan would rush to conquer the territory. The indigenous peoples of Tibet don't have a good track record of defending themselves from a military invasion.

    You have absolutely no clue about arian local depolmatic. Why would Pakinstan invade the territory. Where do you think Pakinsten got their atimic bomb? The reason China buddy up Pakinstan is because they know Pakinstan has as much love to India as Iran to Iraq. Giving Pakinstan enough power will balance the southern Aria nicely for China. As for Tibet, the Chinese (Han if you prefer) military are already SIT on Tibet, they practically make military research centers in there. What make you think the army can't crash any rebellion? Tibetian can't rebel even if Guang Dong declare indepedent (I would like that), let alone Taiwan. CY CY

  • if you really want to know.
    i was just being specific.
  • by Core Dump ( 72098 )
    There is a bit of a difference. If you live in America and qualify for the draft, and are drafted, you go to war. It's this little thing called responsibility, sometimes known by another name, duty. If you don't like it then leave the country. If you die, then it's paid out of gratitude for your sacrifice. Chinese journalists, however, weren't supposed to be in danger in the first place. It was the ineptness of the intelligence (now there's irony for ya) ppl that got them killed, not volunteering for military service. So, yes, the Chinese are understandably a lot more miffed than the relatives of a GI. It was a good thing to pay them, however you can't expect the Chinese to forgive us so easily.
    I think you can figure out how to email me ;)
  • Naa not 1984... nooo...
    Now come let Big Brother brain wash err help you set asside your fears... yes thats it.. come to the ministry of truth and we'll help you... yes we will...

    In a realistic vent I wonder what they are affrade of.. is it pure paranoia? Or dose it threaton someone personally [the way one phlosophy threatons members of an oposing phlosophy]
  • Don't tell me that you really think that people immigrating to America deliberately wanted to spread epidemics.

    They most certainly did. It is well documented that we gave blankets and bedding known to be infected with smallpox to many native tribes with devastating results, in what is the first such biological warfare program of which I'm aware.


    Certainly not the first occurence of biological warfare. This is as old as war itself. Some of ours dead from bad diseases? Get them into enemy territory in one way or another. Toss the bodies over their walls with a catapult. Or into the river that flows into their area.

    This is older than Columbus.
  • If a government is so fearful of one group [however larg] that they'd do this then it won't be long before they let there paranoia distory the government.
    "paranoia will distory ya"
    Ok historicly paranoid governments have lasted for a very long time so don't expect this put put an end to the Chinese government any time soon.
  • No we just ambush their compounds and then burn them alive.

  • "McWee registered a complaint about the hacking attempt with the Maryland state police's computer crimes division.

    Police spokesman Pete Piringer said that because the attack did not succeed in getting access to McWee's server, there did not seem to be a crime committed."

    This is only one man making a comment, but I'm certain this would be of interest to Kevin Mitnick.

  • A thought: what if the Chinese government is doing this for the sole purpose of showing Falun Gong followers everywhere on the net that they're not out of reach?

    "Nice site. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it..."
    --

  • Freedom on information, yeah, i understand why that's so important. But might note that China!=US, different circumstances and all. We see this as a tyrannical act of suppresion, but only from the comforts of our nice cozy, wealthy, stable lifestyle.

    China will get there when it gets there, by its own means... hopefully

  • I get the impression the Commies are afraid of the Mandate of Heaven. Once the rulers have lost that Mandate, the people rise up in revolt and overthrow the govt.

    Boy this is waaaaaay off the technical discussion path, isn't it? Well in that case if the cult did decide to run Linux one day, would the current versions running 2.2.10 be resistant to DoS?

    (PS - mainland Chinese public opinion is of reuniting Taiwan with China. But what about the Chinese on Taiwan? I hope their opinions count too!)

    Today's English Lesson: Oxymorons

  • Yeah, like other Christians never did anything wrong in the name of their religion. Right in the US, you can see abortion providers getting murdered every year in the name of God. It doesn't matter which kind of religion it is, most of the time it always end up in blood and tears. As soon as believers think they are protected by their God and that the laws of their religion are above humans laws, the door is open to all kind of horrors (Algeria is a good example).
  • I've heard of Christan Buddhism.
    Some xtians get fearful over anything that dosn't come from the Bible.
    I say xtians becouse I have a lot of respect for real christans.. but thats a diffrent topic :)
  • They could just block the site however whomever it is who accually wants it gone more than likely won't be happy with it being alive and well outsite of China.
    This seems to be getting to the level of a religous crusade.
    Just my prospective :)
    As for a technicly knoladgable reporter... a reporter could a. grab the news agentcys SysAdm, b. Talk with tech savy teenager, c. Contact a Linux user group who was in news recently.
    Reporters are pritty good at getting information when they really try.

    I guess it could be spoofed but it's no easy effort. Douptful someone could do it and then fail to crack the victoms computer.
  • Lets face it that the Communist vs. Capitalist fights have never been well known for their truthful aspects - just look at the Cuban missile crisis which was just a publicity stunt, so to speak.

    So... is this fact or is it fiction... *ONE* attack seems to originate from a police station... could it be that there's a Chinese police officer who isn't exactly on terms with the US ? Surely not ! Perish the very thought !

    I really do doubt that the Chinese Government would act in this way... do they not realise that the US would strike back ? OK, you may not read that the US is now attempting to hack Chinese machines, but what do you know ? Chinese newspapers will probably be full of stories stating how the Capitalists have tried to deny the Peoples Republic of internet rights and the like... but truth in these times is a rare commodity.

  • > Every body knows about David Koresh. The
    > Heavens Gate... When there is a problem, if
    > nothing is done, people die!!!

    Religions thrive on martyrdom: it's the entire principle upon which Christianity, Islam, and -- to some degree -- Judaism are built upon. Even polytheistic religions have elements -- such as the Prometheus and Huitzilapochtli myths (and the 'nine million martyrs' Wiccan myth) -- that promote martyrdom. The harder you crack down on a religion, the more the *religion itself* is going to be seen as a martyr.

    It worked for Christianity.

    It held the generally fractuous Jews together through millenia of exile.

    It caused David Koresh to commit suicide with all his followers.

    In short, cracking down on a religion is the worst possible thing you could do to 'fix' the problem of a deviant religion. Further, remember that 'deviant' religions with many members have a tendency to move towards the norm; for instance, Mormonism -- which supported the formation of the nation of Deseret within the borders of the United States -- quickly moved in line with other 'mainstream' religions.

    Second: you cannot argue 'information needs to be free' out of one side of your mouth and 'stupid information needs to be controlled by the Firm Hand of Government' out of the other. Excactly how is the moderation of information (in this case, *religious* information) different between the cases you present in the two paragraphs I've commented upon?

    > If you naively look at the situation, and
    > simply assume its another oddity of Chinese
    > government, then you need to look beyond
    > American media. If you've been any where in the
    > world outside of the US, you'll know that the
    > US main stream media is the LEAST FREE--Even
    > compared to China.

    Here's where my 'BS Detector' light goes off.

    Right.

    The politics of propaganda go like this: when your government is doing something you prefer the people not know about, you cut off access to alternate viewpoints, ergo restricting the 'info-flow' to a single stream. The Chinese government does this very effectively: they've stifled the underground press, limited 'net access, and even controlled the flow of information by phone. Most of their 'press releases' consist of fabricated stories, spin doctoring, and out of context information.

    Further, the Chinese press is composed of Party officials trained to take the Party Line(tm). They do so in every possible circumstance.

    The United States does not have the fairest media. Our treatment of the Kosovo situation was egregiously unfair to both the Kosovar, the Serbs, and what was going on. Our treatment of the Air Force incident in Italy glossed over the entire situation. Our press does its best to portray the American viewpoint as the right one, especially within the arena of American foreign policy.

    However: there is no such thing as the 'American Media'. A good portion of the information we chalk up to 'America' is actually coming from Canada and the UK -- and, recently, we've been getting a lot of translated articles from Germany. In a worldwide marketplace of information, the 'propaganda' you accuse the government of *cannot* work.

    The only place where it becomes sticky is within the arena of American politics, which is largely irrelevant on a large scale. However -- within this arena -- the tenor of articles is generally determined by the political disposition at the time of writing. If that falls along Republican and Democrat party lines, then that's just the opinion of Joe Average.

    Anyway.

    I've rambled on.

    -- Dr. Benway
  • I'm sitting in China right now.

    A few more things on Falun Gong.

    One of their beliefs is that once you die, you become a god of sorts. Basically, your blood forms the type of clothing that emperors wore in dynastic China - very symbolic, as only the emperors were allowed to wear these robes and they were considered gods. Anyways, as a result, some followers commit suicide in EXTREMELY gruesome ways to allow their blood to form this robe. For example, slitting wrists, driving cars into poles, etc.

    And you know what? The US's perception of China is largely based on old anti-Communist bullshit. I'm a US citizen. I've lived in China for 3 years. I should hope I know enough about the place and the culture (I'm Chinese) to say that the country is anything but the Communist that is popularly thought of in the US. Come by sometime and see for yourself instead of postulating what you've been taught. Part of communism is the inability to practice free trade. Guess what? Look around your house and find all the little things that have got "Made in China" on them. I could go outside and sell something right now, or buy something from the thousands of small businesses around.

    Censorship? Sure. The subject of this post contains 'gov't of china sucks' I'm in China. I'm typing this. I'm submitting this. Censorship my ass.

    Jonathan Wang
  • Study some economics.

    China cannot possibly hate America. Their economy is reliant on the cheap labor that American companies get there. Some reason for why China could not "blow us up."

    I sure hope that the US won't go around supporting coups against other countries' governments again. One - the US got screwed in Vietnam, Korea, etc., and two - the US fucks up foreign nations' internal affairs enough already. Soverign countries deserve their rights too. The US should stop thinking that it's the role model/superhero of the world.

    Jonathan Wang
  • but don't you want to keep it that way?

    If you do then you might want to start by denying Janet Reno her goal of totalitarian control.
  • I'm merely struck by the astonishing similarities between the original post and the attacks on Dungeons and Dragons from the mid-80's.

    I mean, can't you just picture a Jack Chick tract saying exactly what that said about Falun Gong? And about as coherently too. Though at least the original poster has the excuse of not having English as a first language.
  • Well I remember my password, so I AM logged in, but:

    1) I am not a Chinese, but I play one on TV.
    2) I think that China would be better with a new hairdresser.
    3) I support bans on gongs in general because they are too loud.

    Seriously though, I'm sure this whole issue is too complex for us westerners to understand. Remember we are talking about China here, the ultimate of the chinese fortune cookies (which really are not "chinese" to begin with.)

    I would say the chinese solution to the problem would be to just change the name of the sect. That would solve everything, right?

    Why hasn't the leader of the group thought of that yet? Sounds like he's been in New Jersey too long. If I lived in NJ, after sniffing all those chemicals in the air, I'd think I could walk on water too.

    System halted
  • I still think the reason that the chinese embassy got bombed is that the US info source during the Kosovo bombing situation was hacked. We hear several reports of an information war being waged between the US and and Milosovich's economy, but yet we hear nothing of any casualties (systems hacked) during this time. What if the US info attacks were not only unsuccessful, but WE were the ones who took the hit. It gives a real plausible reason for the kind of grand blunder that bombing an embassy is.Apply a bit of disinformation, and a map could point to anything and the difference wouldn't be known till it was too late. Would "we the people" ever know the truth in such a scenario? I highly doubt it. Here are some facts: Chinese representatives have made absolute monkeys out of US nuke security. This we already *know* , regardless of the inane denials. While the US may not be innocent in the field of "dirty tactics", why is it such a stretch of the imagination to believe that China has an interest in the terroristic control of certain web sites? They made monkies out of the whole US flipping nuclear security system , and while officially denying it, does that make it any less true? Not IMHO. To be fair, I am not anti-Chinese or anything, but as an American, I think we need to cover our collective ass in a much more secure way than we have been, not sure exactly how though. Especially since the embassy bombing...I mean why wouldn't individuals in the chinese gov't want to show off some tech prowess by striking web sites around the world?
  • The Chinese government estimates that at it's peak, 70 million people practiced Falun Gong, I was using their figures since that's what they will base their reactions on. The Communist party states that they have 60 million members.

  • No, don't make China the Evil Ones of the Month! I don't like USA bombing the small and weak (or anyone att all for that matter) but rather that than something huge (*the largest*, in fact) and nukeequipped like China.

    So at least please make the next country something small. Ok, maybe the Evil Arabs is too used now (so *stop* bombing Iraq, btw) but now when it seems to be time for the Even More Evil Communists again, take Cuba! (Economic too, the TV teams won't have to travel very far) Or use the Terrorist thing again and take some African country.

    Don't risk starting WW3 before EU gets militarized and armed up, they don't want to miss all the fun!
  • Interesting. I wonder if a Western government could ever fall to a bunch of people stretching and doing deep knee bends for Jesus.

    I'd take them over our current crop. I will start taking brisk walks in the name of revolution!

    -kabloie
  • by Jonathan White ( 15086 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @12:55PM (#1772370)
    When conducting a syn flood, you need to use forged addresses. The way a syn flood works is by filling the machine's connection queue with connection requests. After the attacker sends a connection request (a syn packet) with a bogus address, the victim will send an acknowledgement (a syn and an ack for the picky) to the bogus address. The victim will wait a certain amount of time for your acknowledgement. Since you are using bogus, nonexistent ip's, no acknowledgement will ever be received. After the (generally) operating system specific timeout, the incomplete connection will be removed from the queue. The goal is to create the connection requests faster than they can be deleted.
    An interesting aside, when NT 4 was originally released, it waited an extremely long time before removing connection requests, this made it very sensitive to syn floods.

  • notice how pretty much the whole world except China either speaks english or falls all over itself trying to learn?)


    !?!! You've probably never been to Quebec.
    Anywho this is drifting off-topic...
  • what's your point?
  • Actually, they announced during one of Bill G.'s trips there that Windows is the official OS of China.
    Wierd, isn't it?
    Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
  • The problem, if you had read and paid more attention to the information in the articles about this issue, is that the content IS aimed towards Chinese citizens, both here in the US and abroad, including in China...

    Also, in case you also somehow "forgot" to learn up on Cisco before posting totally off-topic about it, you would know that Quality of Service tools in Cisco routers are by no means new, nor by no means a problem when used correctly by scrupulous service providers.

    And playing with DNS like that is neither fun nor easy, and not a solution to the problem. The fact still remains that the Chinese Government (or whoever it really is) is attacking a machine with neither provocation or reason... so it really means nothing at all to just change which machine is getting attacked.
    ---
    Tim Wilde
    Sysadmin, Dynamic DNS Network Services

  • That _is_ a terrible Haiku, and not to form anyway.

    Here is an example for you:

    Open your present
    No, you open your present
    Kazinski Christmas
  • The problem, if you had read and paid more attention to the information in the articles about this issue, is that the content IS aimed towards Chinese citizens, both here in the US and abroad, including in China...

    Also, in case you also somehow "forgot" to learn up on Cisco before posting totally off-topic about it, you would know that Quality of Service tools in Cisco routers are by no means new, nor by no means a problem when used correctly by scrupulous service providers.

    And playing with DNS like that is neither fun nor easy, and not a solution to the problem. The fact still remains that the Chinese Government (or whoever it really is) is attacking a machine with neither provocation or reason... so it really means nothing at all to just change which machine is getting attacked.

    ---
    Tim Wilde
    Sysadmin, Dynamic DNS Network Services

  • Actually, Most Favoured Nation status represents what we might well call "normal trading relations." Essentially, the MFN terminology is from an era of high tariffs, and "free trade" wasn't subscribed to by most governments. Back in the 19th century, most countries imposed tariffs to generate revenue, and any deviation from that policy was reserved for "favoured" nations.

    I think there was a bill that would change "Most Favoured Nation" to "normal trade relations" in the official lexicons. I don't know if it passed.

    Personally, I'm against free trade, inasmuch as it removes the ability of a country to conduct foriegn policy. If a country wants to close its markets for ideological reasons, it should be able to do so.
  • Sorry about the duplication, damned submit button was in the wrong place, I tell you!

    ---
    Tim Wilde
    Sysadmin, Dynamic DNS Network Services
  • The DIFFERENCE is that they have stuck to fucking their own people over. This is QUITE different. These are web servers in OTHER countries. They think that if something pisses them off anywhere else in the world, they are king and can come over and doggyrape it anyway they like.

    What a bunch of whores.

    When WWW III comes they will be the first to get pistoned off the fscking plannet and I will rejoice.

    Yes we are all human, but we all do not act the same.

    Down with China.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Nuclear espionage. The Tienneman massacre. Military threats toward Taiwan and Tibet. Human rights violations too numerous to even list...

    For this, China continues to be rewarded with Most Favored Nation status. Washington tries not to call it this anymore instead calling it low tarrif status whatever. It all amounts to the same thing. China can do no wrong and the most we'll do in response is FROWN really really really really really really really really really really really really really hard. Ooooo. That'll show 'em. But we'll keep smiling and shaking hands with these KILLERS rather than disrupt business. After all, its not Americans being brutalized, right?

    Even Cuba isn't as bad as China yet Cuba suffers our wrath far more than China ever does.
  • A distant relative, no doubt, of Peter Noone, child star of British television show "Coronation Street", and former lead singer for "Herman's Hermits".

  • A few ppl have picked up on this already. But believe it or not the Chinese government is not
    stupid. If they wanted to knock these sites out, a couple of hundred dollars to some US script kiddies would have solved the problem.

    mmmm an attack from the public security ministry, don't think so. I think the only ppl commiting any crimes are the Journalists, either they are incompetent in the field (not suprising) or they did not do their research.

    njd
  • According to an AP report I read on Thursday night (published in St Paul Pioneer Press), "Before the ban, an official estimate said 70 million people in China practiced Falun Gong, but the government later downgraded membership estimates to 2 million."

    According to the New York Times (July 27) "The officials (1200 gov't followers of Falun Gong) were taken over the weekend to schools in a city in northern China, where they are being required to study Communist Party documents and to renounce any allegiance to the spiritual movement, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said Monday." and "Government organizations and quasi-governmental groups have been instructed to come forward to denounce Falun Gong, and to hold political study sessions to recite Marxist theory that few officials, and fewer ordinary people, believe in any more."

    Great! Fight spiritual belief with Marxist propaganda! Let's see how effective that is in changing belief systems.

    And of course, the PRC, have requested to extradite its founder who lives in the US. If the US does let Beijing have Li Hongzhi, its founder, the US will show it allows the PRC to do pretty much as it pleases.

    Seems to me this is a typical crush the people ploy by the PRC, who cry wolf, suppress the perceived threat, then say the threat wasn't as bad as thought.

    Regardless of whether or not a "script kiddie" spoofed addresses, it does not justify the PRC's use of intimdation and harassment against its own people. Since the movement was founded in 1992, I seriously doubt there is an organized attempt to take over the Chinese gov't by a bunch of religious fanatics as some have said here.

    Please note I *do not* speak for anybody other than myself.


  • He probably knows. He probably also knows that he isn't really in a position to arrast anyone. Unsolved crimes on books make for poor statistics. Easier to not put them in the books in the first place. By claiming "nothing really happened", he can legitamise closing the file.

    Of course, it's also possible that the police were asked not to pursue the case, to minimise political fallout. After the bombing of the Chinese embasy, the LAST thing the US wants right now is for the Chinese to accuse them of sponsoring a revolution.

  • but the Davidians shot first and lit thier own damn fire.

    The Davidians shot at a group of heavily armed men in paramilitary uniforms with no visable markings who were rushing their compound. If the ATF had simply wanted to enforce law, they could have arrested Koresh on one of the many regular occasions where he was jogging alone outside of the compound. The whole operation could have been handled by a single sheriff's deputy with zero fanfare. Clearly, that's not what they wanted to do.

    As for the fire, who knows who started it, we have only the word of the ATF about that.

  • It's worth mentioning that the chinese government may be similar like ours in that they are not a single organization, but a group of organizations.

    What this means is that it may only be a small influential group that is trying to get rid of faul-gong-however-you-spell-it, and not representative of the whole. Just like when the NSA tries to ban crypto - you've got the Commerce Department going "huh?"

    Now, having said that; Bad china. Baaaad. ROOM!



    --
  • The poster seems to see no hypocrisy in the actions of his own government, apologies if you are not from the US.

    He says that the Chinese government are harassing citizens of other countries. Now I am not sure about you, but I would rather be flooded with ICMP messages than Cluster bombs (Yes they did use them in Serbia as well as Vietnam among others).

    The US feels that if they dont agree with an external country's policies, they are free to bomb the country into the ground, see Vietnam, Iraq, Serbia. Now you may feel that Iraq and Serbia are run by governments of questionable nature. But what the hell did Vietnam do to deserve the bombardment that it got ?????

    On the other hand the citizens of the US are allegedly protected by all their ammendments. One day a country will respond and the US just *might * rethink their attitude to international relations.

    njd
  • I don't how people like you live in the US. Americans are one of the most patriotic people on the face of the earth!

    Am I suggesting that you are not patriotic? YES. you are so clouded by your judgement against the Chinese government that you failed to look at situation rationally and objectively! PEOPLE ARE DYING!!! I can't believe that you are looking at all those crying faces on TV, and telling me that they are all paid actors. Ohh, wait, you probably don't get to see the families of the demented, dying, and the dead. sorry, I forgot about the American media....

    Well, there are demented, dying, and dead. Because of certain under-educated, self concocted, mystical believe system, that uses Budhist terminology, but does not follow budhist teachings. Its a mix of religion, meditation, and POLITICS. yes. it is a political organization. I remember once, the head of the organizatino said. "Some people practice Qigong under trees. but I see, that after a few years, the trees are dead from them rolling too much under them. Why must they practice Qigong under trees?? And kill the trees? Go practice some where else...."

    The main activity for those people gathered in front of Chinese government office is to "Practice Qigong." the message was that some how that ground was a good place for practicing. But WHY? there are plenty of good places to practice Qigong, why infront of the Chinese government. Don't tell me that the Million men march in washington didn't have a political reason behind it. To claim that they must practice their Qigong infront of Chinese government, and that it was totally pure in intentions, and had no political reasons, and especially in such tumultuous times in China, is simply naive.

    Qigong inherently does is not religious. People researched and utilized it for over 5000 years--Usually hidden in mountains, for exactly this reason: Very easily it can bring a "head cutting crime" to its practitioner. To use a Qigong organization, to even remotely promote such a sensitive activity, is just plainly not the way to go from Traditional Chinese Qigong.

    Any ways, main point is, it is political. Treat it as a political activity that these people are involved in, and then tell me that you think the government is trying to disalow a political party.... I'm fine with that. Go and bite the government's head off if you want for doing that, and I might even help you chew.

  • My ~50 father pointed out that this is no different from the Russians using Radio interference to stop Radio Free Europe during the cold war.

    Here in Sweden, which was always neutral, they could often not listen to it because of the Russian interference machines...
  • But people like Janet Reno are trying to make the world more like China.

    And you're encouraging it by saying that our token "democracies" are not as bad as China. Of course they're not. Yet. And we don't want to be heading in that direction either.
  • I'm not sure exactly where you're going with your post.

    I avoided going into belief systems in my original post because it is not esential to understanding the reaction of the Chinese governments reaction.

    I personally practice Qigong and cultivation techniques, so I certailny won't dismiss it as superstition. I do think that Falun Dafa may be oversimplifying things in places, but there's nothing new about that. I have not seen a doctor in over a decade, and I am in good health.

    As for Falun Dafa being fake, I wouldn't be so sure.

    People can die from many beliefs, including the belief that western medicine is the final authority on health. The Chinese government (which definatly has an agenda to support) is only able to point to 16 deaths from people failing to seek medical treatment. That is out of 70 million people (by their estimates). Pick any random 70 million people, and I'll bet you will find at least 16 who died of a treatable disease. 16 out of 70 million (or even 1 million) is not statistically significant. Far more than that die in traffic accidents.

    As for the whole Koresh incident, they are now dead, but government intervention was for their own good. Keep in mind that Koresh could have been arrested during one of his regular trips into town, or while jogging off the compound (which he did regularly). If arresting him was the REAL motive for the incident, then the Fed. agencies are more stupid than I thought (which is saying a lot!).

    A final note: Consider for a moment is 10,000 people walked into Washington D.C., and, without saying a word, sat in a circle around the White House. After sitting there wordlessly for the day, they all get up and walk away. You'd better believe the FBI and the Secret Service would be all over it.

  • by Pzykotic ( 72530 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @09:05AM (#1772431)
    I work for the Asian Broadcasting Union, a coalition of many asian news broadcasters. One included is CCTV, which is the major Chinese broadcaster in China (it also operates under the government). All of a sudden, last week, the Chinese government banned the religious sect of Falun Gong, without much of a reason at all. Ever since then, this whole week, I have seen transmissions of propaganda items depicting ex-Falun Gong members 'giving up their beliefs for the good of China'. This just shows that when the government of China wants something gone, they do their best to have it _Gone_. Also, I doubt this has anything to do with overzealous free-tibet script kiddies, because it's not big news, and from the script kiddies I know, they can't even spell Falun Gong ;)

    That is all.
  • by Athos ( 11806 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @09:38AM (#1772440)
    Hmmmm.

    F@1uN G0ñg ? :)

    (Admittedly, I'm not a script-kiddie, but this is what immediately flashed into my mind.)

    --

  • Mmmm, I'm a chinese in New York too. Look Kido, how can you support the banning of anything, especially a non-political "group".

    Before I throw in my take, let's discuss some facts.

    a) High school education has nothing to do with the guy's talent, you are an igorant elitist.

    b) The guy's in NJ is because Beijing forced him to leave. They started to use this policy from a few years ago. And it's MUCH more effective than any other depressing technique they used before. As soon as the fish leave its water, it's going to try out slowly --very slowly, so nobody will notice it. (You know all the men Beijing kicked out is going to end up in the U of A. Most of them can't adapt to the new environment/figting ground very well.) There was the guy * who was jailed for 20 or so years, and he was sent stright to airport from jail. The minute he came out of JFk, he declared that he wanted to join Taiwan majority party, little did he know that the Taiwan political environment has changed drasitically. That Party has gotten rid of most of the principle it stand for five years ago. So he becomed an instant laughingstock (to all the Chinese, which is what counts.) This is exactly what they did to the FalunGong leader.

    c) The falun Gong doesn't stand for anything, another reason you and the communist party has no say on banning such a "thing" (It's not an organization) The reason of the chackdown is that it's really a perfect target for shifting the public focus --The economic is not moving well; new bottleneck; There's a real chance that that fuck-face in taiwan is willing to create a crisis to extend his presidency (he has used up all of his two terms.) This is just like 2 years ago's southern China prostitute crackdown, if the heads in Beijing can't agree on some more important thing, they agree on a half time break.


    Personally, the retro style "study class" come straigh from the cultural revolution is a laugh riot. As if someone over 14 will take it seriously anymore. And other indication that Jiang ZheMin and co. havn't put a lot of thought on it.



    d) You are really lame in implying that you support a offical DoS attact, why don't you just say it's some patriotic script-kiddie who has access to the machine.


    CY


    *I'll be damn if I remember his name, I'm writing this reply offline.
  • Quoting the article, "Police spokesman Pete Piringer said that because the attack did not succeed in getting access to McWee's server, there did not seem to be a crime committed."

    Someone needs to remind Mr. Piringer, along with the various state legislatures, that other attempted crimes (rape, murder, robbery, burglary, etc), are all quite illegal.
  • (After all, when was the last time you saw an AP reporter who even knew what a WHOIS lookup was, let alone one who would consider that the concept of "contact information" for domains in a country like China might be completely different from that in the States.)

    Don't you think that maybe people who would know how to do this, for instance U.S. Government hackers who might not want to go public, might contact reporters and give them enough info and background to do such checks? I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes we simply don't know.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31, 1999 @09:40AM (#1772464)
    I'm not a coward, but what the heck, I don't have time to create a new account right now. I just want to say that:
    1) I am a Chinese in America;
    2) I think China would be better as a democracy;
    3) I support bans on Falun Gong.

    I've noticed that much of the publicity in America surrounding China's ban on the sect fails to mention the disturbing details about the group:
    1. The group was founded just seven years ago by a man with high school education. He now lives in a spacious estate in (I believe) New Jersey.
    2. The man claims he needs no medication and suffers no ailments.
    3. He claimed Earth is in a volatile state and might explode in 1997 or 98. He now says he can delay the end of world for as long as 30 years.
    4. His methods of meditation can lift a practitioner above water. Yet, when his followers surrounded ZhongNanHai (where Chinese leaders live) they failed to surround the fourth side -- a lake.
  • Those commies always were just a bunch of script kiddies! ;)
    I read about this in my local paper. Seems they were syn-flooding several sites, spoofing the IP of the Dept. of Transportation. But why is this so shocking? After all, the U.S. gov't authorized American crackers to go after Milosevich's (sp?) bank accounts.
    I think you can figure out how to email me ;)
  • I read this yesterday on Wired too. It was actually two Candian ISPs, "Bestnet" in Hamilton Ontario and and "Nebula Internet Services" in Burlington Ontario, not two U.S. ISPs as the header says.
  • Actually, the major difference between socialism and capitalism is an economic one.
    The differences between communism and a democracy/republic is political.
    I think you can figure out how to email me ;)
  • Reported on rootshell:
    Chinese crackers sentenced to death
    12/29/98 2:44PM PDT
    Two crackers who stole $31,400 from a bank in eastern China have been sentenced to DEATH.

    Reported on Slashdot:
    Chinese Government Implicated in DoS on US Site
    Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday July 31, @01:28PM EDT

    Any questions?
  • by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @10:01AM (#1772495)
    Quoth the www.boston.com article:
    >
    > The address McWee said was left behind is registered with the
    > Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, a public registry service
    > for Internet addressees. According to the service, there are two
    > phone numbers in Beijing listed with that address.
    >
    > When The Associated Press called the numbers, a person who
    > answered the phone identified them as belonging to the Public
    > Security Ministry. A telephone operator at the ministry said they
    > belonged to its Internet Monitoring Bureau.

    Silly question for y'all... as much as I'd like to believe that the Chinese Government is involved in DOSing "subversive" sites around the world, I remember reading something to the effect that all IP connectivity from China to the rest of the world goes through some sort of monitoring/firewall/gateway thingy.

    If, for WWW access, this takes the form of some sort of proxy, perhaps it's only natural that the IP addresses of Chinese surfers appear to all be coming from a netblock controlled by the "Internet Monitoring Bureau"? Maybe it's the Chinese Government, maybe it's a Chinese script kiddie.

    Maybe the Internet Monitoring Bureau, as they presumably have control over what domains get registered, happens to be the default telephone contact for domains in .cn, whether or not all traffic goes through a proxy server.

    Does anyone have any hard information on how "Internet access" works in China?

    My gut says it's still the Chinese government. But my brain's telling me not to jump to conclusions, especially when the most sensational "evidence" is based a phone call from an Associated Press reporter from a WHOIS lookup on APNIC.

    (After all, when was the last time you saw an AP reporter who even knew what a WHOIS lookup was, let alone one who would consider that the concept of "contact information" for domains in a country like China might be completely different from that in the States.)

    So - like I said - anyone know how IP connectivity in China really works and that this isn't just a red herring?

What is research but a blind date with knowledge? -- Will Harvey

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