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- May 19, 2013
- Updated: 9:10pm
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China’s People’s Daily rejects hacking allegations by US media
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The official mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party on Monday roundly rejected claims of hacking attacks from China by American media outlets, hinting instead at ulterior motives by the US.
The People’s Daily article echoed vehement government rejections last week after The New York Times and Wall Street Journal linked Beijing to cyberattacks.
In a fresh development, The Washington Post disclosed on Saturday that it had suffered an attack and suspects Chinese hackers were behind it.
“Even those with little understanding of the internet know that hacking attacks are transnational and concealable,” said the signed Chinese-language commentary, which could not be found on the paper’s English-language website.
“IP addresses simply do not constitute sufficient evidence to confirm the origins of hackers,” it added.
The People’s Daily accused the United States of fanning “fear of China” out of self interest, saying that it has invoked national security as a justification for trade protectionism and economic sanctions.
“America keeps labelling China as hackers, simply playing up the rhetoric of the ‘China threat’ in cyberspace, providing new justification for America’s strategy of containing China,” it said.
The article repeated the Beijing government’s position that China is also a victim of hacking, saying that there were more attacks from US-based IP addresses on Chinese websites in December than from any other country.
Despite this, it said, “China did not draw simple inferences or hasty conclusions about the attack source”.
There were attacks from 3,000 foreign IP addresses in the month, it added.
The New York Times reported last week that hackers stole corporate passwords and accessed the personal computers of 53 employees after the newspaper published a report on the family fortune of China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.
Some security analysts said the media attacks were probably linked to the Beijing authorities, while others argued it was difficult to ascertain whether the attacks stemmed from China or if hackers acted on government orders.
Hackers from China have previously been linked to attacks on US defence giant Lockheed Martin, Google and Coca-Cola. Other reports say Chinese hackers have tried to infiltrate the Pentagon’s computers and those of US lawmakers.
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2:55am
The US does hack other countries. But, they haven't been caught yet. Stuxnet, the virus that infected Iraniun nuclear facilities, was built from the ground up with a totally new programming language. To this day, it's not clear whether it was the Israelis or Americans that created the virus, and could not be traced back.
China needs better hackers that aren't just downloading scripts & tools off Google. Really. If you got caught, you need to up your game.
12:13am
In 2012, for example, France accused the US of having hacked President Nikolas Sarkozy. At that time, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano responded to the allegations by saying only that 'the US has no stronger ally when it comes to security than France'.
Newspaper title at the time were relatively neutral. When it comes to China, however, the matter is totally different, and people speak of "red armies" invading us, and of the necessity of decisive countermeasures.
I'm not defending the Chinese government, I'm defending the right of every country to be treated the same way and the duty of the press to be objective.
aristeon@ my-new-life-in-asia.blogspot
9:49pm
Computer system defense is of course part of the national anti-terrorist plan, which includes essential services in Pentagon and many big US organisations like the media.
What we have seen is, whenever they failed defending the hackers attacks, they would shed they responsibility and blame someone else. But, they just don't blame their own inadequacy as if they have no part to play in the issue.
If they continue to fail like this it would not be the hackers responsibility anymore, because the hackers could be just anybody from all over the world, or even just a junior school student experimenting their newly researched computer skills.
1:37pm
1:31pm
