The Chinese cyberwar

Viruses, hackers and crackers
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Ron2K
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The Chinese cyberwar

Post by Ron2K »

Seems like what many of us suspected all along has now finally come out into the open...
A standard, even boring, piece of Chinese military propaganda screened in mid-July included what must have been an unintended but nevertheless damaging revelation: shots from a computer screen showing a Chinese military university is engaged in cyberwarfare against entities in the United States.

The documentary itself was otherwise meant as praise to the wisdom and judgment of Chinese military strategists, and a typical condemnation of the United States as an implacable aggressor in the cyber-realm. But the fleeting shots of an apparent China-based cyber-attack somehow made their way into the final cut.

The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds—between 11:04 and 11:10 minutes—showing custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university. As of Aug. 22 at 1:30pm EDT, in addition to Youtube, the whole documentary is available on the CCTV website.
Source

Disclaimer: the source is apparently quite a bit biased against the Chinese government, so some things may need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
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Re: The Chinese cyberwar

Post by hamin_aus »

I don't like the Chinese government, but I approve of their tough love approach to religion... if they were to turn their might on Scientology, I'd be willing to cut them some slack
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Ron2K
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Re: The Chinese cyberwar

Post by Ron2K »

Seems like some other guys are in disagreement, describing the Chinese cyberwar capabilities as overstated:
Slashdot wrote:A new paper argues that China's cyber-warfare capability is actually pretty poor. '[China has] evinced little proficiency with more sophisticated hacking techniques. The viruses and Trojan Horses they have used have been fairly easy to detect and remove before any damage has been done or data stolen. There is no evidence that China's cyber-warriors can penetrate highly secure networks or covertly steal or falsify critical data,' the paper reads (PDF). 'They would be unable to systematically cripple selected command and control, air defense and intelligence networks and databases of advanced adversaries, or to conduct deception operations by secretly manipulating the data in these networks.'
Sauce
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