Chinese army: We really need to get into cyber warfare

To be honest...

...maybe the PLA hasn't yet gotten into the game yet. Maybe other branches (dependent on the Party) have been doing the illicit data elicitation.

In the same way as in the US, a takes a few years until all the security agencies (17, was it?) have emitted statements that they are hopping on the latest bandwagon and asking for pork and expanded bureaucratic empires.

"on the losing end of what could be the largest illicit transfer of wealth in world history".

I don't think so. The Bushbama bailouts come to mind first and foremost.

Actually, the US started it..

.. by thinking about declaring a cyber attack an "Act of War".

To me that says two things.

1 - there are too many feeding from the taxpayer trough to stop waging war on all and sundry

2 - but they *are* running out of money to buy kit, so pressing buttons at home whilst awarding themselves medals looks like it'll give the gravy train some further rail to run on. Just imaging how much less fuel they'll need..

As for China, they have the problem that they can be accused of communism and a bit of terrorism alike and are thus easy scape goats for when a business doesn't take off (Google and Baidu) or when gov officials haven't done their job protecting what they are supposed to protect. That doesn't make them the culprit, just an easy group to blame..

As far as I can see China is too busy producing Apple kit right now..

Soooo

Uncle Sam has discovered a chink in his armour...

Wealth?

'A US senator said in March that data raids had put America "on the losing end of what could be the largest illicit transfer of wealth in world history".'

This senator has presumably added up the "value for accounting purposes" of all the IP that has-or-might-have been pilfered. That's about as reasonable as the estimates of piracy losses trotted out by the RIAA, or indeed the accounts at Lehman's.

Hey guys, if you can't spend it, it isn't real money.

Sleeper keyboards

It is clear that the majority of computer equipment is made in China.

In excess of 70% of retired computer equipment is shipped to China for recycling.

The cost of embedded hardware key logging is trivial.

With these three facts combined, it is not beyond the realms of possibility for the PRC to subvert the manufacturing process to ensure ALL keyboards (or keyboard controller ICs on motherboards) to be manufactured with logging capabilities. It is only a matter of time before the vast majority of keyboards are returned to the PRC for log dumps, providing highly concentrated information, straight text, passwords, etc, for analysis.

Elementary! Although a tin hat icon MIGHT be more appropriate.

we'd better learn how to interpret Chinese names

It would help if Reg learned how to interpret Chinese names: the two people mentioned have been referred to by their given names in the report, when their family names are Ye and Zhao. The clue was the second person's given name of Baoxian: only very few any Chinese names are two-characters long, though there are a very few, easily learned exceptions (e.g., Sima, Ouyang, Zhuge, Situ - there are around 20 of them). There are some with multi-character names, such as the family name of the ruling Qing dynasty family, but these are almost always not Han Chinese in origin (Aisin Gioro was the Qing family name).

The Chinese military is like any other military -

always fighting the bureacratic war for more resources. Whatever other qualifications Messrs Ye and Zhao may possess, publishing their article in a journal specially devoted to young people seems to indicate both a knowledge of the terrain and strategic vision - if young Chinese geeks do, indeed, read the China Youth Daily and if they take this ball and run with it on the internet blogs and chat fora which are so widespread in China, the resulting public pressure could very well lead to extra funds for just their section. Congratulations !...

Henri