I honestly don't know that the Chinese government is in the wrong here. If we look, historically, every developing country had to steal intellectual "property" in order to compete against the bigger players. Britain did it when they stole Dutch loom technology (and created massive tariffs in order to keep British wool for British industry), the US did it when they coaxed Samuel Slater to illegally bring British mill designs, and South Korea did it as well. While I understand the US's desire to protect their companies' interests, it seems really disingenuous to label a country an enemy for stealing IP.
The article quotes Stewart as saying:
If they did it fair and square, more power to them. But to cheat at it is wrong.
This seems really problematic to me: it's not like all US companies do it "fair and square," and as a sovereign country, it seems like China has every right to summarily ignore IP, or to establish morals that don't care about protecting foreign IP.
I don't think we would want to use the disreputable behavior of nations in the past as a model for what is acceptable today. That's why treaties and agreements are made so that we learn from our mistakes. Not playing by the rules that you have agreed to and expect others to adhere to is cheating -- I have no problem with people calling China out on it. It's not like China is unfairly singled out and there isn't plenty of criticism of the US and US companies for bad behavior. Regardless of sovereignty, the Chinese don't have a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to respect theirs.
> the Chinese don't have a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to respect theirs.
But that "right" is a "moral right", that us perhaps want to impose on it. Not sure if it is an enforceable law.
If we stick to the moral approach. China might see it as hypocrisy as well. From their point of view they can say "well you stole to improve your industry, you burned coal like it was nobody's business to ramp up your steel mills, now you tell us we have to be green, and waste all this money duplicating R&D effort -- that's not fair, and it is our _right_ to do however we please".
Now practically I don't agree with that, but from a more rational position, I could see their point, as well.
It also seemed rather silly when we make fun of Chinese for stealing our high tech technology (stealth, radar, etc). It would seem pretty irrational and wasteful from their point of view _not_ to spend $100k to bribe some spy and instead do spend $10b developing stuff from scratch.
If we stick to the moral approach. China might see it as hypocrisy as well. From their point of view they can say "well you stole to improve your industry, you burned coal like it was nobody's business to ramp up your steel mills, now you tell us we have to be green, and waste all this money duplicating R&D effort -- that's not fair, and it is our _right_ to do however we please".
No one has a problem with China emulating the things the US did to grow its economy that were good, such as allowing women to work and developing a highly educated workforce. However, we would not want them to use slavery or ignore the environmental impact of coal use because we now know that those were bad things. Repeating our mistakes is bad for the world and bad for China, as the Chinese are seeing for themselves the pollution derived from over-reliance on coal.
IP is just a made up way for incumbent producers to squash competition. The Chinese have just as much right to ignore it as every other developing country in history did. Imposing developed standards on developing countries is just pulling the ladder up after ourselves.
I'm not making a moral argument about IP and whether it is good or not. I'm saying that if you've entered into agreements with other nations on the premise that you do something (in this case, protect and not steal IP) then you should honor those agreements. Whether there is some Machiavelian reason to say you're doing one thing while secretly doing something else is a different question. I also don't think that Google should use espionage to steal secrets from Microsoft and vice versa, even if there is something to be gained.
One should also note that China is not some innocent bystander in this since Chinese companies have sought and obtained patents to stifle competition as well. I also think the distinction made between "developed" and "developing" countries is not useful in this case. China has the second largest economy in the world and is very modern by many standards. They have gained great wealth from the "developed" countries least of all because the developed countries are their largest market for trade. China has a net trade surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars. They are not an underdog in this.
How breaking into companies' computer and subverting them into serving botnet herders has anything to do with IP? Most of them don't even have a single thing to do with IP. It's like justifying robbery by saying "well, you have big banks in your country so it's ok if we rob you".
The issue here is not reverse-engineering a technology or purchasing it and replicating it. Many people would argue that it's inevitable.
What encompasses IP is not just technology though.
The concern is that there are foreign actors attacking businesses and doing much more than looking at technology. They are looking through financials for current accounts, revenue streams, customer lists, and pending contracts. They are taking the source code from software companies and schematics from hardware companies. They are effectively acquiring all the information necessary to replace those businesses, often without knowing what they have, and selling it higher up the food chain.
This particular actor in the article looks like really low hanging fruit compared to what other companies are warning they are being attacked by.
And don't forget Japanese - in the sixties and seventies, they were copying technologies exactly like Chinese do today and everyone was afraid they're going to overrun the whole world.
This article isn't about the individual unmasking of a hacker, but more about the humanistic element of unintentionally leaving clues about your identity while masquerading online.
I'm pointing this out because you're in for a highly anti-climactic read.
The university this guy works for (The PLA Information Engineering University) has a military background. And in China this means the teachers and many of the students are literally military personnel.
Well, it just goes to show what most people know already: That there is a vast campaign by the Chinese government to carry out hacks on foreign (and internal sometimes I bet) targets.
Basically, the thing I took away from the article is that it's so wide at this point that no matter the hacker there that you cast your net toward, it probably leads back to the government. In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors (selling what they got for cash or simply stealing cash), or random 'kids' hacking for fun/profit.
> In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors [...] or random 'kids'
Let's say this hypothesis is true; we should then deduce that the Chinese government is years (decades?) ahead of "developed" countries in terms of information warfare. It's quite a worrying thought.
Let's say that your hypothesis is actually false: this would mean that there is an ongoing similarly-sized info-warfare effort waged by the US government (at least), but we rarely hear about it. Again quite a worrying thought.
My thoughts exactly. The US probably has a just as big or more sophisticated organization of hackers and cyber warriors. It's fantastic and also overlooked when talking about Chinese cyber espionage. Much talk seems so one sided, but it's hard to objectively talk about without knowing what the American cyber warriors have been up to. I'll take it as a sign that they're doing a good job and not getting caught. Furthermore, I take comfort in the fact that there are slim chances that the US and China would actually go to physical war with each other. I want to end up working with China in the future, not necessarily against them.
China will certainly won't start a war against the US. There is actually a joke in China saying that if US wants to delay any high level government meetings they can just ask the US schools to have a mandatory parents meeting. And then many of those who in control of China will just fly over because they care about their children as much as other ordinary parents if not more.
And the US will certainly won't start the war either, because you can hardly find someone else who keep lending you money almost unconditionally.
Is "The Chinese Government" that monolithic? It's a People's Liberation Army university. In many countries (memorably, the Soviet Union) the army was a semi-independent entity, with goals of its own. Is this true in China? If so, why go around decrying "Chinese hacking" when you should decry "PLA Hacking"?
The ruler in China is a trinity: the government, the army and the communist party.
Though with the "economic reform" and the unstoppable information flow with internet, China has become something really weird unlike anyone else in the history. Nobody believes in communism and everybody knows the government is lying all the time and yet just lives with it. Every activity by the government is for money and mostly quick money (for the officials).
I don't even think the hackers in this matter care much for the information. They may just try to get more funds from the government. Sometimes they even frame somebody or fake a threats to get the money. The funds will always be granted in such a situation because "if you don't grant you put the country in danger" and "if you grant you can take the commissions".
Most of the time every bit of it is simply dirty corrupted business. Many of the officials' children are permanent residents in the US. Some of them are even already citizens.
Be honest, the U.S. did for years the same and still do it. The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better. The exient would be more believably if U.S., UK, France ... would stop do the same to their "enemies" and allies
Is there anything you can do about chinese hackers. I have a small site and many of the ssh requests come from those hackers. Can I send the list somewhere?
Wait, what? How is this racist? If the story said 'All Chinese are hackers', that would be racist. If the story said, which it did, 'A person who lives and works in China for the government spy academy is a hacker', that is not racist.
Edit: Trolling troll is a troll. I 'knew' it was a troll account, but looked just now to be sure... created 34 minutes ago :P.
It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to such a way of journalism. you ask how?
Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not working for the government, is of no use.
Do I care if the hacker, who hacked my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I don't.
But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal acts, like say terrorism.
Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a terrorist is a terrorist.
But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but not always, say when we experience something similar nearby).
In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our mind with.
You can make those associations in other contexts and I would fully agree with what you said here. A person can be a terrorist regardless of race, creed, religion, etc. The same for hackers. That said, the article is specifically discussing a Chinese GOV linked hacker, and thus he is a 'Chinese Hacker'. This can be said without being racist. That he's also of Chinese descent is inconsequential. I'm certain our spook operations have people of every race and background as long as they get the job done. If we say that someone was a 'Chinese Hacker' while they're sitting in the NSA office in Norfolk, VA... oh yeah, that's racist.
Though, one thing caught me in the article: Working on behalf of the state, and working in the state machinery is two different things.
If you are skilled, and suppose, you can really do stuff, he did in this case, and as it is, for a minute if we give him the benefit of doubt, that no he is not hacking on behalf of the state, its clear, that since to the chinese govt, itself, he is innocent. And the only thing that can be proven is his skill, through our validation. Which makes him all the very suitable to teach at a chinese IT related institute. so yeah, that might be a good reason to say that, we should introspect, that how should such articles shape our perception of the chinese.
Seriously, lets stop looking at who is building more weapons! Instead, lets compete in who is making more jobs!
I've heard of them, but you think this commenter wasn't simply a troll? Could be so, but I question how useful it would be here. HN is pretty well known, but enough to have concerted campaigns in place?
A US hacker hacking the Chinese? I some how doubt it. Probably be offered a job. US hacker hacking US computers... well, I guess government has to vent its vengeance somewhere if it cant get its mits on foreign hackers. Dont get me wrong, my lot in the UK would do the same.
More over, if the Chinese wanted a US citizen extradited for hacking a Chinese computer, do you think the US would hand him or her over to the Chinese? Heh, I even doubt the US would hand a suspected hacker over to an ally like the Brits. Maybe Im wrong. If so, please cite a case.
And of course, equally I dont see the Chinese offering up its citizens for US "justice" any time soon. A justice system that many in the US think of as fundamentally broken.
All I read here is Chinese bad, West good, while forgetting that none of us have clean hands. If the Chinese had some technology we wanted or needed we'd be hacking their backsides off looking for it. And called patriots for doing so.
Lets just stop the moralising and finger pointing, and just get on and play the game. That's all it is. I suppose it fills the space left by the end of the cold war.
I'm not sure that someone hacking the Chinese would be offered a job. The case of Shawn Carpenter (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Shawn_Carpenter...) pertains here. He merely got in big trouble, but the CFAA probably could have been brought to bear on him.
I don't disagree with you about the moralizing, fingerpointing and games to fill the Cold War void.
Did you read the article? The Chinese government is involved in a vast, systematic and sustained cyber attack against the United States (and many other countries).
If the NSA or CIA were doing this, people would be just as interested in reading about one of them being sloppy and getting unmasked.
The article quotes Stewart as saying: If they did it fair and square, more power to them. But to cheat at it is wrong.
This seems really problematic to me: it's not like all US companies do it "fair and square," and as a sovereign country, it seems like China has every right to summarily ignore IP, or to establish morals that don't care about protecting foreign IP.