by Jack Lee
“If we discovered Chinese explosives laid throughout our national electrical system, we’d consider it an act of war. China’s digital bombs pose as grave a threat.” Richard Clarke, WSJ
In justifying U.S. involvement in Libya, the Obama administration cited the “responsibility to protect” citizens of other countries when their governments engage in widespread violence against them. But in the realm of cyberspace, the administration is ignoring its primary responsibility to protect its own citizens when they are targeted for harm by a foreign government.
Senior U.S. officials know well that the government of China is systematically attacking the computer networks of the U.S. government and American corporations. Beijing is successfully stealing research and development, software source code, manufacturing know-how and government plans. In a global competition among knowledge-based economies, Chinese cyberoperations are eroding America’s advantage.” WSJ report 6/2011
This week the Department of Homeland Security sponsoring an international cybersecurity workshop at Idaho National Laboratory. This is our top cybersecurity research center in the United States. It’s infrastructure protection specialists offer their services to a number of nations around the world as part of our ongoing effort to obstruct the relentless computer attacks sponsored by the main culprit China, however other nations such as North Korea and Iran have also engaged in cyber-attacks.
The attacks are really the covert theft of intellectual property. Their method of operation is to enter a secured system and retrieve data over an extended period without being detected. The information being sought could be anything and any computer storage base is at risk. The targets could be defense plants, high tech businesses, utility companies and their computers that operate power grids, oil and gas refineries, telecommunication stations, among others.
China has been actively training their students at home and abroad, and even in the United States where our own universities are used to help them become specialists in the area of computer hacking and data mining. It’s estimated that several thousand agents and students are in the United States, sponsored by the Chinese government, to engage in cyber crimes and undermine our national security.
In a time of war this knowledge could provide China a great advantage as they cripple our best defense efforts, expose our stealth aircraft to attack and cause shut downs of our basic infrastructure. A nationwide cyber attack would cause chaos and panic as the lights go out, the water stops and your ATM machine shows you have a zero balance. This is all part of the long range grand plan being readied by China. However, they vehemently deny any knowledge or responsibility for these blatant acts of aggressions and simply say that any computer hacking originating from within China is strictly the work of petty criminals working alone.
Currently we employ a large number of Chinese nationals in private industry, mostly high technology firms, that are sometimes government subcontractors for the military. This has created a grave security risk, as evidenced by numerous attempts by Chinese to smuggle defense secrets out of the country.
In 2005 Bill Moo was one player in a sprawling, decentralized network of Chinese agents who was caught shipping secrets to China. “They are scouring the globe on behalf of the Chinese government, vacuuming up every shred of technology information or hardware they can get their hands on,” says former FBI officer Ed Appel. A press officer at the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., calls that accusation “groundless,” saying that “the Chinese government does not have activities in espionage in the United States.” However, Appel and others say that extensive Chinese spying is indicated by a sampling of cases that have recently come to light in the United States.
South Korean arms dealer Kwonhwan Park was sentenced in August 2005 for exporting Black Hawk helicopter engines and night vision equipment to China. Ting-Ih Hsu, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Hai Lin Nee, a Chinese citizen, illegally exported 25 low-noise amplifier chips that have applications in the Hellfire air-to-ground missiles carried by Apache and Cobra helicopters.
New Jersey firms Manten Electronics and Universal Technologies sold China millions of dollars’ worth of restricted computer chips. Eugene You-Tsai Hsu, a retiree living in Blue Springs, Mo., tried to buy a critical encryption device tightly controlled by the National Security Agency. Additional accused Chinese operatives have been sent to prison in cases involving Generation III night vision equipment and computer chips used in advanced radar and navigation systems. None of the spies acted in concert, according to U.S. counterintelligence sources. Like Moo, they were freelancers, operating at what Appel calls a “deniable distance” from their Beijing bosses. However, they did share much of their quarry–items on shopping lists that included some of America’s most sophisticated weaponry.
The Chinese government has become much bolder in recent years and has a clandestine network of agents within the USA, all aggressively working to invade your privacy and steal technology. Kexue Huang was recently convicted on two counts of stealing trade secrets from Dow Chemical and the agribusiness company Cargill. Huang worked for Dow between 2003 and 2008. He was first arrested by the FBI in July 2010 on charges that he stole information related to the biosynthesis of Dow’s Spinosad brand spinosyn insecticide.
We’ve also had missile guidance technology stolen from Loral Space during the Clinton Administration by China. Our friends the Pakistani wasted no time in selling the Chinese the remains of our stealth helicopter that crashed in the raid on Osama bin Laden compound.
The theft is intellectual property is paying off. China has closed the technology gap and save hundreds of billions of dollars in the process.
It is believe that our war plans, including top secret stealth countermeasures, are in the hands of the Chinese, thanks to cyber-hacking, outright theft of secrets by Chinese employed in our universities and as students and they are not all Chinese Nationals, a few of the spies have been American born, but have kept close ties to China.
The cooperation by college and university officials has been less than satisfactory and in at least one incident the FBI was requested to get off their campus. They were called racists for insinuating some of their students were agents acting on behalf of the Chinese government.
It’s always war, war, war, with you people. THis is not war … it’s espionage. And if you think we ain’t operating in return, you is extravagantly naive.
Uh oh:
This is not a typo. It is definitely a sentence containing an error in grammar.
We could be mean spirited but we realize that all of us are capable of such errors from time to time so we will not insinuate that the author of said sentence is lacking in mental or educational capacities.
Play nice Q…kay?
Libby it’s always war with you people too…war on poverty, class warfare, they bring a knife we bring a gun.
Other than that you are correct, it is espionage, but so what? Are you against protecting the advantage we have for the defense of our nation? Doesn’t the federal government have a constitutional mandate to do so? Shouldn’t we do all we can to stop the efforts of the Chinese and others since their motives are to harm us?
Please don’t go off on me about them having the same rights with regard to our efforts at espionage. They do have that right.
The question is, is freedom and your guaranteed rights worth protecting?
Amazingly the “corporatists” are being encouraged to “sell out” by a country that makes doing business here more costly and difficult than the Chinese and other countries do. There is a solution but the covetous, class warfare, redistribution monsters don’t really care and so do nothing. So we lose here at home through espionage efforts and we lose overseas by attractive incentives to locate offshore. (Stupid)
Of course, the Chinese government has been attacking our military and industrial databases for years, trying to steal secrets. What really amazes me is how many cyberattacks there are against our personal computers. If you have an anti-virus program such as MacAfee, you can see the attacks against your own computer. Look under a tab called Activty Logs, and view the list of what happens every day, all the time if you are using broadband, which is always connected to the internet. The typical line will read, “a computer at (long number intrusion address) has made an unsolicited attempt to gain access to your computer through portal (opening to your computer).” You can use the program to trace that address, and a world map will appear with a squiggly red line, backtracking from your house through a whole bunch of intermediary cities, until it finally arrives at its origin, which is virtually always in the China area. These are unsuccessful attempts, but they number about 40-80 on a typical day, and that makes you wonder how many did get through. It also makes you realize these probes are being sent everywhere all the time in a shotgun manner. I don’t have any military or industrial secrets on my computer, but these attacks are just sent out in mass at random. Some of them must have gotten through at the Pentagon, White House, or wherever.
The Abortion issue is stupid now? And here I thought Quentin believed in protecting all life…
And the racism is a nice touch Quentin…I always figured you for a big–, but thought even you would be smart enough to hide it from a public blog. But then again leftists have been known for their highly racist behavior in the 20th century.
It’s always left to those of us liberty loving, individual rights types on the right to straighten you out.
Either way good to see more of the real you coming out. As excitable as you are it wont be long before you are calling for our public execution…or did I miss that already, haven’t been around for a while.
Has anyone out there in the mental health industry been paying attention to Quentins posts?
Is it just me, or is he becoming more irrational, angrier at inconsequential issues, more delusional, more intently focused on the irrelevant, and deeper into megalomaniacal ranting lately?
I could be wrong, but I think he has gone several steps beyond normal liberal lunacy.
Jack, it’s been noted alright. I was hoping it was just a temporary aberration. Which reminds of Dan Quayle’s famous words of wisdom spoken at the UNCF Dinner, “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
Soaps, you really have hit on a little known area of illegal Chinese hacking.
Yes, they do hack into random computers all the time, just as you have noted. From everything I’ve been able to read on this, they have been hacking into personal computers at random in the US for years, probably hoping to hit a good computer that may be linked to large businesses or a military connection. I know this sounds incredible to folks, but it is absolutely true, as Soaps has discovered.
It makes sense that once they’ve got your identity and URL they may come back just to try and defeat your security until they finally break thru. For most online users they will enter , get bank records, credit card numbers, passwords, emails and more and you will never know they were in there. I’ve had at least dozen attempts on my computer, but I’ve got a triple layer of security and so far I am not aware of any successful entries, but I’ve noted the attempts.
McAfee or AVG, etc., are likely no match for a determined Chinese government hacker, but probably good enough to defeat the average hacker.
Soaps, it’s to your software’s credit that you were able to actually discover they were attempting these break in’s. Too bad you couldn’t send them a virus! lol
“Are you against protecting the advantage we have for the defense of our nation?”
I think I asserted that we are quite busily engaged upon it.
But on a grassroots level, it’s something to think about. If your livelihood depends on a freely functioning cyberspace, you want to re-think, and probably back off.
My current legal assignment, they’ve got their documents managed in “the cloud”. This is really dumb, but all they can see is that it’s cheap … until their documents evaporate … clouds evaporate … by intervention of Chinese hackers or Slavic blackmailers … but the employer won’t consider it … until they have no choice.
We are a lot of dumb bunnies.
I understand Quentin, but we have to be respectful to all people. I’ll remove the C word.
Send a thank you note to President Nixon for opening trade with China.
But hey, at least we got cheap ipods and flat screen TV’s.
Quentin:
“You guys are so frickin’ scared of the truth, my every single utterance results in a dog pile!”
It good that you understand that.
Actions have consequences.
If the Chinese want to attack us cybernetically, let’s send them a bill for the cost of the defense. If it happens often enough, we could erase our debt to China!
I see that Post Scripts has edited out Q’s disgusting racial slur for the Chinese. While I think that shows the exemplary and deep rooted decency of the Post Scripts staff, I am somewhat disappointed that you should do him any favors, even in the name of common decency. (Which is something Q completely lacks.)
I think people deserve to know how ugly Quentin Colgan is.
Pie thank you for your kind words. We had to remove the racial slur because it was highly offensive and it violated the E-R’s policy and our community standards. Blogs get a wide latitude when it comes to free speech, but they cross the line when there are threats of violence, slanderous personal attacks, illegal remarks and racists commentary, those things are not allowed and never have been.
Quentin Colgan is being given a free pass. He has violated every single E-R policy and community standard in not only his own miserable blog but in the comments section here.
This would be amusing if it were not so depraved and deranged. Quentin Colgan has heaped mountains of calumny upon the TEA party and conservatives in general for being racist.
Now he reveals himself to be a vile racist doofus as despicable and disgusting as any Skinhead pinhead.
Why am I not surprised? Doofus is the operative term here.
Of course Jack does not kiss anyone’s behind, so of course Q has to insist that he does with even more calumny as well as to repeat his favorite half-baked canard that I am on his payroll.
The only purpose this boob has in life is to hurl insults like a third grade bully. Which, come to think of it, is precisly his emotional and mental age given the evidence his supplies daily in Posts Scripts.
Is Q on top as he so humbly claims? I think not. Post Scripts owns Quentin Colgan. He spends more time hurling insults here than he does composing the lunatic fringe nonsense he spews in his own miserable blog.
Why the E-R puts up with this pathetic creep I have no idea. He has violated every single E-R policy and community standard for civility.
How much lower can he stoop on his path to complete self destruction?
Q, its okay, we all make mistakes. Your passion got the best of your judgement. But, if I didn’t do that the ER would have, its just the paper’s policy.
It might surprise what I know about the Chinese. So, I’m not soft on China’s government at all, no illusions. However, I can appreciate the Chinese culture and I have had many great experiences with Chinese people. Generally speaking on a one to one basis they are humble, polite, generous and considerate.
I believe China is headed to economic dominance and perhaps military dominance, but its going to be decades down the road and we have the time to make the changes here to hold our edge, but I doubt we have the will. We’re a divided nation and too many of us have chosen a path (European style social democracy) that has been proven not to work. I’m afraid we’re headed to a bad end unless we wake up and realize our reality.
Personal attacks, racially insensitive remarks, veiled threats of violence, Q has violated all of these Jack. I think it’s time to invite Mr. Colgan to enjoy the fruits of his bitterness on his own blog, and dis-invite him from commenting here. I believe it has reached the point where he is actually keeping good people from reading Post Scripts Jack, and this would be best for everyone.
Steve, this will be discussed with our online editor Ryan Olson and I’ll be seeking Tina’s input as well. Your concerns are reasonable and need to be addressed, but I can’t make such a decision unilaterally, that’s up to Ryan who has the final say.
“Personal attacks, racially insensitive remarks, veiled threats of violence, Pie has violated all of these ….”
But nobody seems to mind.
Curious.
Libby, I’m not seeing what you’re seeing, but Pie knows the rules and we’ve snipped a few of his words in the past that were out of bounds.
For what it’s worth I’m trying to get you approved as a trusted poster so your comments will go right up without delay, same for a few others that we trust. It’s not because we agree, because we don’t…mostly. However, you have demonstrated over time, with very, very few exceptions, that you try to abide by the rules of common decency and are willing to exchange opinions responsibly.
Re Libby’s: “Personal attacks, racially insensitive remarks, veiled threats of violence, Pie has violated all of these ….”
This is, of course, a bald faced lie. I have never engaged in racially insensitive remarks nor have I ever made any threats of violence, veiled or not.
I have engaged in personal attack, particularly when responding in kind. I can understand why me tossing back the slings and arrows that others hurl bothers you Libby, and I am making a concerted effort to cease and desist stooping to the level of you and your peers. But not to please you.
It seems that Mr. Colgan cannot not make a single post to the comments section without engaging in personal attack, a snide remark, or a misrepresentation of the Post Scripts blog staff or commenters such as myself.
But you do not seem to mind.
Curious.