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Tuesday, 26 February, 2013, 12:00am
America's two-faced tirade against Chinese 'cyberwar'
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The Obama administration is planning to confront the new leadership in Beijing over the cyberwarfare that the Chinese state is allegedly waging against America and its top corporations. Photo: AFP
Hey, kettle. It's pot here, calling to denounce you with evidence you are undermining world peace.
The Obama administration is planning to confront the new leadership in Beijing, according to The New York Times, over the cyberwarfare that the Chinese state is allegedly waging against America and its top corporations.
The evidence? A dubious report by commercial internet security firm Mandiant - which was not peer-reviewed by any independent experts - and which has generated so much free publicity for them by accusing China of being the world's worst cyber-rogue state.
According to the company and now the White House, almost every item on a lengthy, confidential list of IP addresses - linked to a hacking group that has stolen terabytes of data from US corporations - could be traced to a neighbourhood in Shanghai that hosts the Chinese military's cybercommand. Even Hong Kong's own University of Science and Technology reportedly had a few addresses on the list.
These attacks were presented as sophisticated and state-sponsored. But how sophisticated?
Strangely, these master hackers from China all forgot to hide their internet traces. In fact, they did the opposite: they left their fingerprints all over the crime scene so it could all be traced back to a single People's Liberation Army source in Shanghai! Just how smart could these guys be?
Or perhaps they weren't the real perpetrators. Presumably, any self-respecting hacker or cybercriminal worth his salt would plant false leads and hide tracks so his crime can't be traced back to him. Who would leave behind a long list of IP addresses to implicate himself and pinpoint his location to a single postal address?
To date, the only confirmed act of state-sponsored cyberwarfare has been by the United States and its closest ally, Israel, against Iran's nuclear weapons programme.
Like nuclear weapons (with the Soviets) and weapons of mass destruction (with Iraq), an enemy is needed before Washington can legitimise the development of new military capability or go to war … or launch drone assassinations - oh, sorry, I meant targeted killings - that have caused thousands of deaths, many of them innocent bystanders, in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia.
Which is the rogue state?
This article first appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition on Feb 26, 2013 as US hypocrisy in cyberwar of words
After reading this article, people also read
Oinfosys Feb 28th 2013
12:10am
12:10am
Alex,
Marc Vo
CTO for Oinfosys inc. in San Francisco Ca.
I would like to congratulate you on your article.
Although it is an Opinion Piece. You have motivated me to respond.
My organizations Core business is technology research specializing in leap frogging technologies.
Let me first give you my email address Marc@oinfosys.com
My team of technology researchers and myself is available to you.
Please contact me anytime.
Your pieces contains no facts at all. The I.T. industry Norm for peer reviewed is to release the data and Industry leaders and experts from all over the world will Flame you if you are wrong.
As an american I am offended. I assume that you believe your reader to be only from Asia.
Let me clear that up right now.
The South China Morning Post has a global audience.
Your statement " The evidence? A dubious report by commercial internet security firm Mandiant "
I applaude Mandiant for their courage to stand by their work and put their expertise
on the net for all to see and review.
IMO Mandiant's goal is to create a dialog between our two Economies.
To address the elephant in the room and invent a forum for containing
the corporate interllectual property robbery.
I will be posting this to my readers on Google Plus and Linkedin.com
Looking forward to speaking with you.
Cheers, Marc
Marc Vo
CTO for Oinfosys inc. in San Francisco Ca.
I would like to congratulate you on your article.
Although it is an Opinion Piece. You have motivated me to respond.
My organizations Core business is technology research specializing in leap frogging technologies.
Let me first give you my email address Marc@oinfosys.com
My team of technology researchers and myself is available to you.
Please contact me anytime.
Your pieces contains no facts at all. The I.T. industry Norm for peer reviewed is to release the data and Industry leaders and experts from all over the world will Flame you if you are wrong.
As an american I am offended. I assume that you believe your reader to be only from Asia.
Let me clear that up right now.
The South China Morning Post has a global audience.
Your statement " The evidence? A dubious report by commercial internet security firm Mandiant "
I applaude Mandiant for their courage to stand by their work and put their expertise
on the net for all to see and review.
IMO Mandiant's goal is to create a dialog between our two Economies.
To address the elephant in the room and invent a forum for containing
the corporate interllectual property robbery.
I will be posting this to my readers on Google Plus and Linkedin.com
Looking forward to speaking with you.
Cheers, Marc
wang.feng Feb 27th 2013
12:44pm
12:44pm
Posting comment on behalf of reader whymak
"A reader asked: “Have you (or Mr. Lo) ever actually read a refereed computer science journal paper?” Thanks for your condescending comment.
Indeed I had in my R&D days before I became a professional manager. As a matter of fact, I am still working unsuccessfully on an algorithm right this very minute after a few passes. And that's just all for fun. So eat your heart out, my friend.
No, I have never taken a single course in computer science but had designed a commercial CPU with pipeline architecture as well as the entire instruction set for the microcode control store in the CPU. Here is the meaning of this gibberish. I wrote the microcode implementing my assembly language instruction set for the computer’s CPU. Comprende? Verstehen Sie? Now are you satisfied?
The trouble with ignorant China baiters is their own tunnel vision, 坐井觀天.
Elsewhere in this column I just responded to another reader related to Ken Thompson's talk on rootkit malware. But I don't suppose you know who Ken Thompson is or what programmable logic controller rootkit means.
Now you can go back and wallow in your hate China diatribes."
"A reader asked: “Have you (or Mr. Lo) ever actually read a refereed computer science journal paper?” Thanks for your condescending comment.
Indeed I had in my R&D days before I became a professional manager. As a matter of fact, I am still working unsuccessfully on an algorithm right this very minute after a few passes. And that's just all for fun. So eat your heart out, my friend.
No, I have never taken a single course in computer science but had designed a commercial CPU with pipeline architecture as well as the entire instruction set for the microcode control store in the CPU. Here is the meaning of this gibberish. I wrote the microcode implementing my assembly language instruction set for the computer’s CPU. Comprende? Verstehen Sie? Now are you satisfied?
The trouble with ignorant China baiters is their own tunnel vision, 坐井觀天.
Elsewhere in this column I just responded to another reader related to Ken Thompson's talk on rootkit malware. But I don't suppose you know who Ken Thompson is or what programmable logic controller rootkit means.
Now you can go back and wallow in your hate China diatribes."
honkiepanky Feb 27th 2013
6:56pm
6:56pm
I am the poster of the condescending comment in question, which seems to have gone over your head. Not sure why you think jargon and name dropping (and yes, I do have the credentials to understand perfectly well - I have read as well as published computer science papers) are going to impress anyone.
caractacus Feb 26th 2013
9:53pm
9:53pm
Alex, for a normally rational person you have a real chip on the shoulder about America. Every time a story reflects badly on China or Chinese you react by pointing the finger elsewhere as if someone else's misbehaviour whitewashes China's conduct or makes it ok. Well, it doesn't. Look in the mirror for once, or can you not bear the idea of your nation or race losing face?
wwong888 Feb 27th 2013
9:21am
9:21am
pls take it easy on alex. he is just following orders from his new commie editor. gotta kiss china's a$$. the owners of the scmp have a lot of business interests in china. who knows, maybe they will sell the paper to xinhua and then alex can point to his patriotic pieces over the years. sad.
GeorgeChow2000@... Feb 26th 2013
7:36pm
7:36pm
This couldn't be more true than my mind could speak. Especially for the drone attack, what will happen if China deploy drones (which I think she has the capability) in India/Israel and kills what she might claim to be enemy of the state, of China? I am not a communist, in any sense, and my parents actually suffered under the Communist regime back in the 60s, but I resolutely reject the idea of coming up with an allegation that only has the most dubious evidence to substantiate it.
boondeiyan Feb 26th 2013
6:07pm
6:07pm
Dude, where's my motive? You seem to have gotten lost along the way to figuring out why exactly the US government would send a private company to do a slightly amusing job of Google-search-as-white-paper as political smear. What, it's not enough grounds for Washington to get snotty with Beijing when some large majority of PCs in China are running pirated Windows among other software? Quick, how many blocks from Huaihai Zhonglu in the middle of Shanghai do you have to walk to find hundreds of pirated DVDs? Uh, zero point five at most. There is already plenty of easily obtainable evidence that the Chinese government abets IP theft from the US. There is every reason to assume that Beijing still follows Sun Tzu's precepts and has at least tried to ramp up its cyber-espionage/warfare capabilities given how much China's potential adversaries will have invested in such. Why do you make it out to be such a stretch from one point on this continuum to the next? Why slog the muddy path of moral equivalence? Slow news day I guess...
rsallen Feb 26th 2013
12:13pm
12:13pm
Is there anything more futile than a playground-style, "my superpower is more moral than your superpower" argument? Alex's piece looks like a knee-jerk reaction which is based, not on the actual report, but on press reports of it. His point as regards hacking seems to be, "well you started it." He's right to criticise the US use of drones, but fails to mention that China is not far from using them itself, as discussed in Gerg Torode's piece.
I usually enjoy Alex Lo's columns; heck I even agree with some of them. But this one is pretty silly.
I usually enjoy Alex Lo's columns; heck I even agree with some of them. But this one is pretty silly.
whymak Feb 26th 2013
10:09pm
10:09pm
You're putting words into Mr. Alex Lo's mouth when you insisted he said, "my superpower is more moral than your superpower." His statement clearly implies that the US, as well as other China bashing readers are hypocrites - two-faced morons speaking with forked tongues - lacking both logic and rectitude.
I am no apologist for China's misdeeds. Mr. Lo can speak for himself. But it's the sanctimoniousness and projectionist mind of some readers in this column which need a sanity check.
China is not far from using drones? Sure. Greg Torode is projecting that China will do in future exactly just as what the West did in the past - trafficking slaves, peddling opium and slaughtering 500,000 Filipinos during Spanish American War. I am glad you find your favorite columnist to commiserate with on the ascension of China.
I am no apologist for China's misdeeds. Mr. Lo can speak for himself. But it's the sanctimoniousness and projectionist mind of some readers in this column which need a sanity check.
China is not far from using drones? Sure. Greg Torode is projecting that China will do in future exactly just as what the West did in the past - trafficking slaves, peddling opium and slaughtering 500,000 Filipinos during Spanish American War. I am glad you find your favorite columnist to commiserate with on the ascension of China.
rsallen Feb 27th 2013
1:03am
1:03am
When you label anyone who disagrees with your peculiarly bigoted views "a moron" you immediately shed any credibility you might have had. China makes no secret of its intention to use drones. ****defensetech.org/2012/09/24/china-seeks-drones-to-monitor-islands/
So you're factually wrong and abusive. Good work.
So you're factually wrong and abusive. Good work.
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