China’s Cyber Warriors In The News Again
by
on August 26, 2007,
What is up with China? For quite a while I was railing against Google for being so ethnocentric, and Yahoo! too. Now it seems that China's “Army hackers” are in the news again allegedly infecting German ministries with spy programs. German magazine Der Spiegel reported that German government ministries including Chancellor Angel Merkel's office have been infected by these attacks. We reported on this Chinese “hacker army” back in June, and this latest allegation seems to signal a Cyber war that is heating up.
China's response to the allegation was vague and honestly weak considering the implications and their foreign minister Jiang Yu simply said that this type of activity is illegal in China. Now there's a confidence inspiring statement: “Crime is illegal, therefore it does not exist!” The Reuters story linked to a statement online by the minister that essentially says the same thing - this activity is illegal in China.
Germany's Merkel, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabo are scheduled to meet tomorrow and Merkel is expected to press these issues and others including asking China to help with human rights violations in Darfur. I do not mean to sound trite, but isn't that like asking the mice to protect the cheese?
I guess I should post this under weird news or something, but doesn't international politics appear strange to anyone else? In my earlier article China had evidently assembled a legion of cyber warriors that has been counted by the U.S. According to reports from our DOD these units are designed for gathering industrial secrets among other things. Given the sad state of affairs for the average Chinese worker as far as working conditions - I certainly hope they are hacking into the Occupational Safety Hazards Administration to find out what snorting coal dust and soot all day will do to productivity.
In another story here I tried to report on China's part in the global community in as far as their industrial buildup and other issues. The trend in news from China is just taking a bad turn in my view. Sub standard shipments of products, suppression of rights, massive environmental goofs and now more news of using the Web as a virtual battlefield. It just seems to me that China has much larger issues than what Germany is doing. Web 2.0 is the most significant platform for communication, learning, education, entertainment and essentially positive change in a very long time. I think that everyone including the Chinese should utilize it to learn what works and to help people rather than trying to gain some advantage that will end up not helping the people of China.
Cyber-Warfare idiocy is what some people view as a viable Web utility I suppose. China can't even provide safe drinking water and working conditions for her people, but thousands of Cyber Warriors must make sense to someone. I think if we looked at all the data and information on the Web and analyzed the people's progress and mistakes over the last 5 decades, then perhaps the “end user” would benefit more. As usual the “end user” (that would be you and me) is a secondary consideration for people intent on growth for the sake of growth. This is perhaps a discourse for another venue or time, but still news of the probable misuse of a great tool.
A river in China clogged with (no doubt) unshipped Walmart toys. Make war on pollution not Web 2.0
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Svetlana Gladkova
Vamsi Kishore
Peet McKimmie 
65bus 
Irel Johnson
The biggest issue from China today ISN’T these isolated cyber attacks. It would be interesting to see if these attacks even originate from China at all as many black hats out there try to cloak their activities by spoofing the origin of the attacks (.ru is another VERY popular one). Even if they ARE originating there, the real issue for China is THE BLOCKING OF ACCESS TO SPECIFIC PARTS OF THE INTERNET. While Singapore is famous for REGULATING the Internet to death, China is stagnating its economic progress by blocking a LARGE number of web sites, maybe even YOURS!
It’s hard to make judgments or talk about another country’s issues from the comfort of your own easy-chair. EVERY country has their own dirty laundry and one should be cautious about throwing the first stone. Let China progress at their own pace without criticism. But do so with as much information available as possible.
I was fascinated when I tried to find pictures of pollution in China for this article. Interestingly some of the most blatant and revealing images had somehow been removed? The Internet is an important part of our communication system Robert, but compared to larger issues like global warming, unsustainable growth, water quality, the quality of life of its people and the larger issue of where the world’s most populous nation will end up loom much larger than blocking YouTube.
As a Web 2.0 technology blogger approaching these issues is a little awkward, but I have a personal interest and I think we all should take interest in where the whole world community is headed. China is a big piece of the puzzle - but not necessarily one we can or should directly approach. But we have to say our piece don’t we?
All these nations appear to be following a failed pattern of growth. Here in the US we rationalize a whole series of failed ventures away. Letting China “develop” is not for us to decide it is true - but armchair quarterbacking via this blog may just jog someone into looking at the world rather than WOW for 10 minutes.
I failed to mention the 25,000 US soldiers designated to counter this type of activity. Are they really countering or are they in a more aggressive posture. I simply used this story as a springboard for a much larger discourse - and from an non-ethnocentric ideology as well. I hate to see other countries with so much potential make garbage dumps out of their country side. Perhaps an ostrich posture is better suited to the would be geographer and political scientist.
As always, I appreciate your comments and insight Robert. In my view we are slightly past the Meiji Restoration and the Analects of Kong Fuzi. Society is winding a little too fast towards critical mass for more wandering 19th century industrialism.