Mar 07 2008

Chinese Communists: incompetent or scary as hell?

Posted by Neocon in China, Foreign Policy, Terrorism, technology

Maybe both. Here are three stories that should concern you. Resurrecting a parody as well.

This story is currently the big Drudge headline, speaking about Chinese hackers (who are “sometimes” employed by the Chinese government) who claim to have hacked the Pentagon before. No reason not to believe them.

They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world’s most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.

The leader of these Chinese hackers says there “is always a weakness” on networks that allows cyber break-ins.

In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government — a claim the Beijing government denies.

…

At a congressional hearing in Washington last week, administration officials testified that the government’s cyber initiative has fallen far short of what is required. Most alarming, the officials said, there has never been a full damage assessment of federal agency networks.

“We are here today because we must do more,” said Robert Jamison, a top official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Defending the federal system in its current configuration is a significant challenge.”

U.S. officials have been cautious not to directly accuse the Chinese military or its government of hacking into its network.

But David Sedney, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, says, “The way these intrusions are conducted are certainly consistent with what you would need if you were going to actually carry out cyber warfare.”

Beijing hit back at that, denying such an allegation and calling on the United States to provide proof. “If they have any evidence, I hope they would provide it. Then, we can cooperate on this issue,” Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a regular press briefing this week.

But Xiao Chen says after the alleged Pentagon attack, his colleagues were paid by the Chinese government. Again, CNN has no way to independently confirm if that is true.

The article goes on to say that Western sources don’t believe these sorts of hackers are employed by the Chinese military directly, but does that honestly matter? I’m much inclined to give the Chinese more credit than most; I think these sorts of things are directly related to their military and if we don’t wise up, we’ll be electronically neutered as soon as any future conflict starts. See more Neocon News posts on this topic here and here.

The second story comes from The Jawa Report. Apparently the ChiComs are having some drinking problems.

Last month, the Henan Alcoholic Drink Industry Association, a trade group alarmed at losing its best customers, challenged the [no drinking] policy as a violation of the legal rights of civil servants.

“The country’s Civil Servant Law doesn’t require civil servants to refrain from drinking during their lunchtime,” argued Kang Yinzhong, a lawyer for the trade group, according to state media. “Drink or not, it is the civil servant’s right. Public power has no legal ground to interfere in a civil servant’s life if he or she doesn’t mess up their afternoon work.”

The third comes from James Fellows in the form of e-mails he has received concerning the state of the Chinese military.

Obviously they would not say, nor would I, that the casual/ragtag aspect of Chinese soldiers as encountered in normal urban life is representative of the whole Chinese military, indicates that China does not have advanced weapons or a growing navy, puts to rest all questions about China’s ambitions, or so on. But this anecdotal exposure has an effect — it’s pretty much the opposite of the impression one gets from brief exposure to the US military — and I bet that most foreign residents of China would say that these reports ring true. Certainly they do to me.

Check them all out. A little pre-weekend reading for you care of Neocon News, where we’re overly cautious and certainly willing to give the Chinese the benefit of the doubt from a threat perspective.