How long can the West go on doing unfettered business with China with one hand, while waving their finger at the communist nation with other each time they commit espionage? How much can be stolen in the name of China’s unashamëd expansionist goals before Western nations show some solidarity and take a stand, sanctioning the Chinese for what is unquestionably politburo-approved invasions of sovereignty and national security?
Suffice is to say, when it comes to geopolitics, Australia is a pismire nation. However, as an offshoot of its geographical location and being an effective military vassal state of the U.S., Australia’s importance on the “Asian Century” chess board has grown. As such, surely theft of sensitive information - information that the U.S. were likely themselves also availing - must have some repercussions… no?
Or is the West now such a whipped Sino cuckold, as a result of the Chinese economic tentacles deeply embedded in their economies, that little more than engaging in infantile games of tu quoque are all that can ever result from, what Obama himself has stated, should be construed as acts of war? :dubious:
“Communist” China is a tad inappropriate since if you’ve been to China it’s a lot more akin to wild wild west unfettered capitalism mixed in with an unhealthy dash of State planned economy. Communist it ain’t.
Chinese economic tentacles deeply embedded in their economies would be a further argument for capitalism wouldn’t it? I mean, Australia is a commodities based economy and China is one of the biggest commodities purchaser, if not the largest purchaser in the world. Thus giving China the economic stick over down under. Much less so for the US, despite all the harping on how many treasuries China owns. The major issue for the US is that if Chinese exports stop, then both the Chinese and US economies grind to a halt as the US no longer has a supply chain for a huge chunk of what we produce and/or consume.
Whether the politiboro is sanctioning this or simply not opening a State sponsored can of whop ass on perps is an interesting question.
Australia is a pismire nation - you said it mate, not I.
All that said, I agree with you the non-Chinese nations should get their act together on a unified front against the industrial espionage, outright theft of IP and Nation State data. It is simply unacceptable. And the Chinese leadership can either get on board with resolving the issue, or take the consequences.
As in, the meteorological data was, like, Australia’s “wife”?.. And Chinese hackers “seduced” it? So now Australia is deeply hurt and embittered and can’t trust its data any more?..
… I’m not sure I think this is a very useful metaphor for hacker espionage.
If we want to keep China’s economic tentacles out of western countries, we would have needed to make that decision 20 years ago or so. It’s now a political impossibility, as the Chinese government has too much influence in too many institutions that have too much power in Washington and elsewhere.
Military retaliation doesn’t seem terribly smart. We could try retaliating with cyber attacks against the Chinese, but that risks escalating the conflict.
I think the best approach is to play defense. Spend a little bit less of our military budget on planes, ships, and artillery that will never actually be used in warfare. Shift that money to building the world’s best cyber-security. Have government employees spend less time doing absurd training seminars, and more time learning about cybersecurity threats and how to defeat them.
China uncensored video on how this works in China (just substitute ‘America’ for ‘Australia’ or whatever other country you like). Basically, the video breaks down how China does economic espionage for fun and profit. It’s a 3 step process according to the video, going from the Chinese military to technology transfer centers to Chinese companies who operate under (directly or indirectly) CCP control. It’s actually quite a system. Here is another FWIW (there are several on this subject on CU, FWIW).
[QUOTE=China Guy]
Whether the politiboro is sanctioning this or simply not opening a State sponsored can of whop ass on perps is an interesting question.
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Well, it’s interesting to speculate which CCP faction is actually controlling and directing it…not really a question that one or more of them are, that Great Firewall of China thingy being there and all.
We spend a staggering amount on cyber security in the US (billions, and that’s JUST on cyber security…it doesn’t count the regular IT budgets)…the largest cyber security budget on the planet. Spending more isn’t going to really buy us that much more, what we really need is more training on why it’s important for folks who don’t have a clue, as most hacks are because of human stupidity or greed, not because of sooper dooper cyber hackers…people often use easy to break passwords, or will give out their passwords in phishing type attacks or for a few bucks in some cases. China takes a brute force approach…they really suck at cyber warfare but there are so damned many of them that even if 99% of their attacks fail that 1% from literally millions of Chinese hackers makes a difference. Really, if the US got seriously pissed off at this (and we should be), the best way to go about stopping China is to retaliate in kind (though I can’t see the US government hacking Chinese companies then giving that info to US companies to give them a competitive advantage, which is a large part of what the Chinese military hacking program does…however, I COULD see us targeting Chinese government agencies or even their Great Wall with DDOS or other systemic attacks on their network infrastructure). They are actually much more vulnerable than we are to this sort of thing…we simply don’t do more than demonstrate to them that we COULD go after them without actually doing so. I suspect that Obama told Xi in their recent meeting that China should keep in mind we could do so…which is probably why China has shifted focus, for not, to other countries re the OP.
Oh, and we kind of need those ships and planes if we DON’T want to ever have to use them.
Not sure how that’s supposed to work- they try and fuck us every way possible in cyberspace, and if we respond in kind, WE’RE the ones escalating things?
Personally I think that a couple of Stuxnet-style industrial espionage type attacks might get the point across to China that they can’t do this kind of state-sponsored cyber-thievery and attacking with impunity. The only reason they’re getting away with it is because there’s no real incentive for them not to.
They’re basically getting their cake (trading with us) and eating it too (stealing our
industrial secrets to compete with our own industry).
I don’t know this for a fact, but I would be shocked if Australia were not conducting cyber espionage operations against China. Absolutely, totally, 100 percent floored.
The difference seems to be that China gets caught with its hand in the cookie jar quite often, and it seems other nations do not. Are we supposed to be so offended that we consider retaliation for ** China is conducting high-tech cyber-espionage operations on us**; while we, the West, are merely collecting information on some of their computers that aren’t very well secured?
If you followed along with what Obama was saying (leaving aside the video I linked too which I doubt anyone watched :p), you’d know that this isn’t the issue. Obama et al acknowledged that we spy on the Chinese and they spy on us (and everyone else spy’s on everyone else). The actual issue is that the Chinese military uses it’s resources to break into private companies databases with the intent of stealing their data about their business and products so that they can reverse engineer or steal those products or business practices and then give them to their own companies. Sort of a cheap R&D program from the Chinese companies perspective…just take the data, reverse engineer the product or practice (or get insider information that can be used to an advantage) and PROFIT! All 3 steps are there for a change between doing something and profiting from it.
And, of course, they get caught at it…a lot. Like I said, they aren’t particularly good at this sort of thing, but they have a hell of a lot of hackers that work either directly or indirectly for the military/government and quantity has a quality all it’s own.
Again, you seem to be missing the point. It’s not Chinese COMPANIES that are hacking US companies, it’s the Chinese GOVERNMENT that’s hacking them FOR Chinese companies. So, unless you are saying we should let the US government hack Chinese companies for US companies there is a disconnect between the two situations. And this is a big deal…big enough that Obama specifically brought this up when he met with Xi.
Yes, so we tell the Chinese Government to stop hacking corporate computers. And then they tell us to shove it because we are surely doing our own hacking of Chinese corporate computers. And that leaves us with a good case to retaliate?
Let’s say that you make a living breaking in to people’s houses, and you use the proceeds to buy formula for starving babies. I break into people’s houses and I use the proceeds to buy cigarettes for teenagers. Just because I use the proceeds for more dubious purposes doesn’t give you the moral high ground to tell me to stop breaking into people’s houses.
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
Yes, so we tell the Chinese Government to stop hacking corporate computers. And then they tell us to shove it because we are surely doing our own hacking of Chinese corporate computers. And that leaves us with a good case to retaliate?
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Do you have any evidence that the US government is hacking Chinese corporate computers? Do they? Do either of you have any evidence that the US government is doing so and has a system in place to reverse engineer and pass on that data to US companies?
I’m guessing the answer to all of this is ‘no’, so it’s not really that tight of an argument.
Well, except for the fact that this is a bad analogy and doesn’t actually address the real world issues or offer any sort of realistic comparison between what the Chinese are doing and what the US does, sure…in this fantasy analogy neither has a higher moral high ground. In reality, I’m unsure if the US has a higher moral high ground or not, but that what the two countries are doing is very different and affects different things.
Who knows if we hack foreign corporate computers. I can’t think of a single good reason why we shouldn’t if we wanted to, so my assumption is that if there’s a decent reason to break into the Eastern Wind Aviation Company Number Four’s cloud storage to see how they are building some new widget the U.S. Government is interested in, then we’re going to do it. Why wouldn’t we? I mean, neither of us know for sure, but it doesn’t make sense to me that we’d have a policy to put Chinese corporate IT systems off-limits.
And I think it is a great analogy, because it concisely illustrates that you’re wrong.
In the videos I linked to they describe specific products and processes that were hacked from US and other foreign companies, reverse engineered and then put out by Chinese companies. Can you think of any examples of the converse taking place? I mean, to me, it make zero sense for the US government to hack Chinese companies with the idea of stealing their corporate secrets, passing them to US companies and having US companies reverse engineer them and sell them to undercut China because our system doesn’t work that way. I could MAYBE see the US government hacking Chinese military development companies to get their weapons secrets, but even then it’s kind of a stretch to think that the US government would do so even on the unrealistic chance that China is so far ahead of us on something that the only way we could catch up would be to hack in, steal their technology then reverse engineer it.
But really, you are just speculating since you have no evidence that the US government does stuff like that (and to head someone else who might not be following along in the conversation, I’m not saying that the US government doesn’t hack the CHINESE GOVERNMENT or try and steal THEIR secrets…that is nearly a 100% guarantee that we do that) while there is a ton of evidence that China does this stuff all the time. Heck, they have a process in place to do it…which there is zero evidence of a similar process and agency in the US structure for us to do the same thing. I guess it could be out at Area 51 and run by Elvis, since it’s not on the books. I seriously doubt any western government uses it’s military and government cyber security to break into other countries companies, steal their secrets and then help them reverse engineer them to give them a competitive advantage…the reason this even comes up is that China’s actions are so outside of the norm in this respect.
Ok man, if you say so. Good discussion though, right?
Part of my job is looking through the logs of other people’s hacked servers. China’s IP space does more balls-to-the-wall brute forcing than anyone. Russia and Romania combined at the height of their activity did less than China currently does. With their firewall, it would be pretty incredible if a great deal of that isn’t from government sanctioned actors.
So, yeah. I’d like a cite that we hack Chinese companies without a national security concern before they bother with looking for a cite on the corporate angle. Something close to what China pulled against Google and a few other companies would be a nice start.
I don’t know if it rises to an act of war, but the time of talking sternly is long past.
I guess i don’t see the distinction you seem to be making. Is there some sort of rule, or gentleman’s agreement, about spying that countries are supposed to observe? Who gets to decide that it’s OK to spy for political and military purposes, but not for economic purposes? Who gets to decide that private companies are off-limits?
Such a formulation is rather convenient for the United States, because the United States benefits greatly from political and military spying, and the United States loses out from economic espionage. Why, in the global pantheon of intrigue and covert operations and underhanded tactics, should the United States get to set the rules?
I’m not saying that i like what China is doing. But i also find it rather puzzling that some Americans, from the government on down, are so willing to get up on their high horse about this, when they live in the country with one of the most committed and sophisticated espionage systems in the world. And where the very companies that are being hacked by the Chinese have, in very real ways, often benefited (directly or indirectly) from America’s global military and political and economic power.
Yeah, that’s my reaction too. That’s especially true in China where major corporations are the government, to some degree (although I suppose that’s true of the US nowadays too ;)).
[QUOTE=mhendo]
My basic question here is: So what?
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You don’t see a problem with a nation station hacking other nation states corporations, stealing their patented products or processes, using their state resources to reverse engineer those products or services then passing them to their own companies to produce? Do you see a problem with a company pirating another companies software? How about another company creating a reverse engineered product exactly like, oh, say Apple’s iPhone in every detail? That ok?
If so then I guess to you it’s not a problem. Seems to me to undercut international trade and commerce if COMPANIES do this, let alone if a nation state with all it’s resources does it with the intent of giving their companies a competitive advantage. Bummer that the first company put in all the time and effort researching and developing (and marketing) their product and then the Chinese (or whoever) can just come along and swipe it, reverse engineer it then give it to a Chinese company to mass produce, but thems the breaks I guess.
How would you feel if the US did this? I mean, we have the largest cyber security budget currently, and we COULD steal stuff from just about anyone we liked. Be cool if we stole stuff from European companies and gave those to US companies so we could undercut them in the market place? Because that’s what you are saying when you say you don’t see the distinction or think it’s a big deal.
And if the US was arbitrarily dictating this you’d have a point. But we don’t and you don’t. Or, conversely, if this is totally cool why don’t other countries engage in this? Why doesn’t the UK government hack German companies to give them a competitive advantage? Why doesn’t the French Government use it’s resources to hack British companies, reverse engineer their devices and give them to French companies? And if the US has the largest cyber security budget and arguably the most powerful and extensive cyber security program, why the hell doesn’t the US hack everyone, steal all their secrets, pass them to DARPA and then give them to US flagged companies so we could rule the world as the gods intend?
If you can’t see the difference then I’m at a loss to explain it. It’s staggering to me that so many of you don’t get this and can’t put this in real world terms. It’s also staggering to me that you guys all seem to assume that the Chinese are ONLY hacking US companies and stealing our products and patents and hurting our businesses (which I guess is cool to most of you, since they are evil businesses and obviously deserve to have their business stolen by a nation state they can’t possibly compete against) and equate this to the regular cyber espionage that all nation states participate int.
I’m puzzled that anyone who cared about the US spy programs (I do) isn’t at least as alarmed at China’s behavior. It’s more intrusive and more indiscriminate.
So that would justify the US not responding how, exactly?
“Cuckold”?
Ok man, if you say so. Good discussion though, right?