back to article Look, can we just forget about Snowden for sec... US-China cyber talks held

US and China officials have attempted to hold their first working-group meeting on cybersecurity in the midst of the NSA global surveillance scandal. The representatives met on Monday to discuss how best to tackle attacks by hackers. The summit was organised in April before ex-CIA technician Edward Snowden blew the lid off the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Chinese don't have anything of worth to steal, whereas the Americans do, they're both as bad as each other though.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "The Chinese don't have anything of worth to steal,"

      On the contrary, they have a huge amount worth stealing. As a major holder of US treasury bonds, their future economic plans are of importance, their negotiating position on all manner of future poltical agreements is worth knowing, as their companies' negotiating positions in big commercial agreements. Their future defence plans are of interest, indeed every aspect of their foreign and domestic policy. Even on IP, there's a widespread assumption that the millions of Chinese research scientists produce nothing of worth, but personally I doubt that.

    2. Naughtyhorse
      FAIL

      The Chinese don't have anything of worth to steal,

      except ALL the money that is :-S

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "The Chinese don't have anything of worth to steal, except ALL the money that is :-S"

        But you don't steal that with surveillance or hacking, you just get the US Federal Reserve to create sufficient new money so as to devalue the holdings of your creditors. If you're a small time criminal this is called "forgery" and is illegal, if you're a government it is called "quantitative easing" and entirely acceptable as a means of paying debts.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        My point is the Americans don't go in for this mass spear phishing strategy because most of the info they'd get from that is shite, they have to be more focused on exactly what they want.

        The Chinese can target pretty much anyone in academia or industry in the US and steal something they can make use of because they are so far behind in terms of technology. The Americans have to know what they want to steal, the Chinese can just take anything.

  2. Shasta McNasty

    Is there a point in this meeting?

    Given both China and the US spend a lot of their time spying on each other, would they be saying anything the other party didn't already know?

    1. wowfood
      Joke

      Re: Is there a point in this meeting?

      I knew you were going to say that.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Is there a point in this meeting?

      The point is to realise that they can just tell one another everything and save money on infrastructure.

  3. Naughtyhorse

    international laws and norms in cyberspace

    norms like;

    It's ok to eavesdrop if it's us that's doing it

    and

    Writing malicious code to damage the infrastructure of a foreign power is only bad if it's not uncle sam or cousin hymie doing it.

    fuck em! and the horse they rode in on.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: international laws and norms in cyberspace

      > and the horse they rode in on

      I beg your pardon? It has been paid for by the taxpayer!

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: international laws and norms in cyberspace

        Indeed! Why blame the poor horse. It had no say in the matter... just like us

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: international laws and norms in cyberspace

          There's always a neighsayer; whatever the argument.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just Scum

    The Chinese government is just scum, IMO.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Just Scum

      "The Chinese government is just scum, IMO."

      Well let's look at the US record so far.

      Mass surveilance of citizens who have committed no crime at all.

      Got that.

      Arrest without trial for decades.

      Gitmo still open for business.

      Hand over all data (including your credit card details) of any visitor flying into the country

      Actually I think the US leads the world in that practice. Odd given that all the planes responsible for 9/11/01 were internal flights.

      Require any businesses to hand over all data held for their business (including that held on behalf of customers if their business is data management EG Amazon cloud services).

      THE PATRIOT Act. No warrant required.

      Chinese citizens know they live in a police state.

      Man or pig, Pig or man. I'm having trouble spotting the difference.

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Just Scum

        Please don't feed the troll.

        In fact, don't even bother to downvote it.

      2. Daniel B.
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Just Scum

        Both governments are evil. The difference is that China doesn't really hide much of its evilness, and openly targets those groups they dislike, such as Falun Gong.

        The US will spy on all your stuff and not do anything ... until you piss off the wrong G-Man. That's when the spooks act...

      3. Grikath

        Re: Just Scum

        Actually, the only difference the US has with the old SovUnion nowadays is that at the time each group of tourists got a friendly "Guide" to help them along in the Friendly Nation.

        Then again, with all modern surveillance capacity actual physical guides would be superfluous.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just Scum

        "Man or pig, Pig or man. I'm having trouble spotting the difference."

        Well, there's a clear difference on few indicators:

        Chinese public spending is about 20% of GDP, US government spending is about 40% of GDP, and China has enjoyed sustained economic growth and rising levels of employment.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just Scum

        "... for 9/11/01 were internal flights were internal flight....":

        1. Think you will find it was on 11.9.2001, i.e. September, not November.

        2. By no means a USA fan; but this statement is silly. They used the tools to hand, with the lowest security barriers and highest availability, plus more shock value (not johnny-foreigner aeroplanes booby trapped in some nasty, foreign place like London or Abidjan). USA internal flights are or were notoriously slack for security.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Riffin' on Dirty Harry ..

      Thoughtless opinions are like sphincters .. every asshole has one.

    3. JaitcH
      Thumb Down

      Re: Just Scum

      At least China never pretended to be a virgin unlike the USA who has the affrontery to lecture everyone of Human Rights, Democracy and Freedom.

      Kind of rich when you consider they abbrogated the Geneva Convention; operated Abu Ghraib Prison and tortured prisoners; made Guantanamo a no mans land jail; waterboarded inmates; murdered innocents, including two Reuters employees along with a sound track that sounded like a moose hunt; abused Bradley Manning by denying him clothing; lieing to everyone from politicians and citizens and even spying on their own people. The list is endless.

      If you call the Chinese 'scum', what is your descriptor for the USA?

  5. Tom 35

    Has to be

    "China has since made it clear that it reckons it's a bit rich of the US to be constantly accusing the Communist nation of digital espionage when it appears that the US government has been engaged in such a wide campaign of electronic snooping."

    About the biggest case of pot calling kettle black ever.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Has to be

      "About the biggest case of pot calling kettle black ever."

      It's not clear which country you're referring to as the 'pot'. Your comment might apply equally well to either one.

  6. Muckminded

    Strange Math

    Huge electronic vacuum cleaner for the internet: $4 billion a year (funded with help by the Chinese)

    Undermining trust in your own nation's companies: Priceless

  7. Sly
    Linux

    but when I check the fail2ban logs of my server...

    all I see is Korean and Chinese IP addresses. Very rarely will I see a European address (3 so far IIRC). And even more rare is a US address (only 1).

    Just stating facts. I am located in the US and using a .us address which may attract more foreign fire as it were. Thankfully, no actual break-in has been noted to date, though there's really nothing worth breaking into that system for. It's just a picture dump for sharing stuff with friends/family. In fact, it gets so little traffic now days, that a RasPi is more than enough to handle all the traffic.

    1. Grikath
      Facepalm

      Re: but when I check the fail2ban logs of my server...

      Ummm... Call me stoopid, but when attempting something shady you will of course use an IP that can be directly connected to you, your activities, and preferrably your (approximate) physical location... The "101 Rules for the Successful Evil Overlord" handbook says so, so it must be true. [/sarc]

    2. veti Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: but when I check the fail2ban logs of my server...

      That tells you absolutely nothing about the location, ethnicity, affiliation or agenda of the attackers.

      All it does tell you is that China has a lot of poorly-secured servers, which shouldn't come as a big surprise.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: but when I check the fail2ban logs of my server...

      Ooh. You must be really important. Who and what are in those pictures?

      Even you or I, insignificant fluff among the cogs of the great, state machine, can use a service to hide our true IP address origin, e.g. to overcome restrictions on watching other countries' television online (e.g. BBC iPlayer).

      No doubt, you think the flashing lights on your router, when your system is logged off are, are entirely down to evil people probing your machines for access.

      Silly bugger. Do you imagine, seriously, that you are so important, or that most of the 300 million-odd USA inhabitants are so important, that foreign spies are trying to read your data? For that matter, I dare say 90% of national and local government IT traffic and data is of little use except, perhaps, for monitoring the social security budget, local fire brigade and so forth (I know one can extrapolate p0ssibilities from these; but I suspect there qre easier ways of getting such data).

    4. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: but when I check the fail2ban logs of my server...

      Well if I wanted to access all the servers of everyone, I'd make sure that I controlled the infrastructure in the country where they are located (especially the main links into/out of it). Then I could inject and removed packets from that infrastructure to my heart's content. I could use any IP addressses I wanted, knowing that since I control the infrastructure I control the routing, and the "geo-location" of the IP address means nothing.

      An alternative is that I hack major telcos or universities in a 3rd country, and route all my misdeeds through their networks. They then get all the flak and I quietly watch and smile to myself.

      I'm not a genius. I didn't come up with this by myself; I got the idea from the daily paper.

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