back to article China hits back at US cyber snooping allegations

The war of words between the US and China escalated at the weekend after the People’s Republic vigorously denied allegations from the Pentagon that its rapid rise as a space superpower has been made possible in part thanks to “successful spying”. The US report prepared by the departments of State, Commerce and Defence …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm puzzled

    If the western media are to be believed only the Chinese are involved in digital espionage (or whatever it's called today) but surely pretty much every other country does the same thing to their perceived enemies. Why wouldn't they?

    Are the Chinese just inept at covering their tracks or are we only seeing one side of this story?

    1. scarshapedstar

      Re: I'm puzzled

      Because China has nothing worth stealing? We're talking about a country where even the eggs are fake.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Because China has nothing worth stealing?

        They may specialise in fake eggs, quack medicine and other such fripperies but what they will have pretty soon is the world's largest economy. I'm sure the Yanks would like a bit of that back.

        Economies aside, the Yanks and other countries would love to know what Beijing is planning next, their military capabilities and so on. I'm guessing the Yanks aren't just sitting on their hands and waiting to find out from a Wikileaks release.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Hardly surprising

    I can't think of many (indeed any) examples of successfull parallel development of significant technology around the world. Even secret stuff eventually leaks one way or the other, and not just through espionage.

    It's not as if the US has developed all of its tech itself, is it (despite what they like people to assume)?

  3. Muckminded

    If you can't join 'em, point

    The real question is, why does the US military feel the need to go public? Given that the US has poured billions into electronic warfare and surveillance, especially post-911, it seems doubtful it's just a case of "giving up". It also appears unlikely that the intelligence agencies are unaware of the entry points and possible targets. Given that many of the companies hacked are really just government subsidized private companies, cooperation with them must be fairly easy to come by. So, why pretend to be surprised or that what was swiped was even the real thing? Probably just a case of saying, "I know that you know that I know what you did, and I want to make sure everyone else knows that we both know what we are both up to, so they don't just think it's me doing it. Buddy."

    Or, maybe they just get mad sometimes.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Don't get mad anytime, get rad all the time.

      Hi, Muckminded,

      Whenever you might think you know how simply the spy system can be made to work for you, or whenever you have comprehensively tested and/or would always be radically testing it to be sure and constantly assured that you do know and it is not just a delusion you would be fooling yourself with, is the espionage game a fabulous source of great wealth to be freely spent as one sees fit with others equally cognisant in the field with its myriad meadows, flowered perfumed gardens and secured paddocks.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If you can't join 'em, point

      RE "why does the US military feel the need to go public?"

      Worryingly, the only advantage I can see to 'going public' is that public opinion and support is required for some overt manoevers. Although I don't think we are anywhere near open conflict, the US machine may feel some need to 're-educate' its public as to the new 'threat'.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Armando 123

    Now hold on!

    If you can't trust military and technological secrets to a communist nation that runs over its own people with armored personnel carriers, who can you trust?

    1. ShadowedOne
      Mushroom

      Re: Now hold on!

      Personally, I wouldn't trust military (and/or technological secrets) to the only nation to drop nukes on (two) civilian population centres, either.

      1. Nightkiller

        Re: Now hold on!

        ... so you could write this left wing, History distorting, out of context response.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Technology transfer

    There is no need for the Chinese to commit espionage when the Americans are quite willing to hand over the odd fully-operational P3 Orion.

  6. ian 22

    Restrict satellite sales to Iran, Norks?

    Shock! The Norks have $/€/£/¥ to purchase satellites? We've sold satellites to the Iranians?

    It all seems a bit... counterfactual.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Restrict satellite sales to Iran, Norks?

      Welcome to the Great Game, ian 22. Create confusion and misinformation, aka spin, deliver death and destruction to allow wholesale theft of national assets and international treasure. The human livestock is dumb, it will never discover they are so easily fooled to be useful and expendable tools.

      It really is that simple. And so crazily unbelievable to the reasonable mind as to be the perfect stealth vehicle for such operations.

      But the world is getting wise to the ploy and that creates real problems for the perps in the shadows which unbelievable sums of money may not be enough to guarantee that they go away. But it is always a very good starting point if one realises one is easily outed and likely to be sacrificed to a newly educated and angry baying vengeful mob because of what you have been doing ..... pulling the wool over everyone's eyes whilst pilfering and plotting austere derivative futures for all but a select chosen few who would have included you had the ignorant masses not gotten secret knowledge. But hey, that is the reality of the alternative system with new orderly worlds virtually controlled remotely from CyberIntelAIgent Spaces and SMART Active Places ...... Live Operational Virtual Environments

  7. David 45

    In denial

    Well - they WOULD say that, wouldn't they?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    c'mon, it's the oldest play in the book...

    "The US report prepared by the departments of State, Commerce and Defence recommended that export restrictions generally be loosened on items used to build satellites and other hi-tech monitoring equipment, in order to give US industry a much-needed economic boost."

    You've seen it before. America sells weapons to it's enemies (the next BIG war will be won by those with the best tech) but it doesn't give them the good stuff, i.e. anything cutting edge or under development. Then when it's made a huge profit off the back of it they'll go bomb the bejesus out of that country because they suddenly "pose a massive threat to our way of life."

    They might even have the balls to call it a pre-emptive strike again, which is somewhat akin to shooting a black teenager in a hoodie because in your paranoid [retarded] brain you think his bag of sweeties is actually a gun. We all know they're down with that in the land of the free.

    Surely you didn't fall for this one again, did you?

  9. Monkeywrench
    WTF?

    Why is classified information on the Internet to begin with??

    It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you want to keep something secret you shouldn't put it on a medium designed for sharing information. Makes about as much sense as a bank putting its vault in the middle of an unlit, unguarded parking lot.

    Why is all this super-secret sensitive information not on closed systems? Can someone please explain that to me?

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Why is classified information on the Internet to begin with??

      "Why is all this super-secret sensitive information not on closed systems? Can someone please explain that to me?" ........ Monkeywrench Posted Tuesday 24th April 2012 04:06 GMT

      Because it is designed to be further developed and improved beyond individual knowledge, Monkeywrench, thus to invent/discover higher intelligence/immaculate states of being?!.

      The flip side of that coin though is that such intelligence would realise that there is a choice to use such knowledge and/or higher intelligence to collapse/destroy/change hosting systems because the dangers that they can impose when used and abused by ignorant and/or perverse corrupt souls with the mental capacity of an idiot savant in extremis with no thoughts on future consequences/no viable creative future imagination?

      Which would seem to prove that psychopaths are responsible for the generation of that classified information which is leaking into systems.

      Now there's a novelty and an inconvenient truth of an explanation whenever considering all the pathetic male posturing in destructive theatres of psychotic paranoid play.

  10. mhenriday
    Boffin

    Why is the US government now going public with these claims ?

    Blowing in the wind or not, the answer might just be found in the following interchange between Gustave Gilbert and Hermann Göring in the latter's cell in Nürnberg on 18 April 1946 :

    «Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

    Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars*.

    Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.»

    Nice to see Phil, on the basis of his vast experience and cultural knowledge, giving the US government a tip on how to deal with those dastardly Chinese !...

    Henri

    *Note that the US Congress hasn't declared war against any country since the declaration of war against Rumania (passed in the House on 3 June 1942, in the Senate on 4 June 1942, signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 5 June 1942). Neither the constitutional limitation mentioned by Gustave Gilbert, nor the provisions of the UNO Charter don't however, seem to have greatly limited the US governments propensity to go to war in the nearly seven decades after the end of WW II....

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOL stupid fuckers

    Pot. Kettle. Black.

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