back to article Chinese and US military square off for cyber war games

The United States and Chinese military have been locking horns in secret cyber warfare exercises designed to help prevent the outbreak of real war between the two. The Guardian revealed that two so-called war games were carried out last year through intermediary and Washington think-tank the Center for Strategic and …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Silverburn

    One would hope that the US is playing it's cards very close to it's chest here. They have the technology, and one would hope, the experience and knowledge. Afterall, the first rule of 'engagement' is to never reveal your true capability.

    Then again, this is the country that thinks ritual humiliation of the populous at its airports is a deterent to terrorism...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      IT'S = IT IS

      If you are too stupid to learn how to use an apostrophe, just don't bother.

      1. Silverburn
        Boffin

        Re: IT'S = IT IS

        If you're (<-- oooh, look) too pedantic to view content as more important than one apostrophe, don't (<-- ooh, and other!) bother commenting.

        Downvote wasn't (<--wow, I'm (<-- and other!) on a f*ing roll!) mine btw.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "and other"

          Actually, the complaint regarded two incorrect apostrophes.

          The point really is that it beggars belief that a vast majority are too ignorant to learn three simple rules but many, particularly on this site, would consider themselves to be intelligent individuals and probably are quite learned in much more complex subjects.

          Oh, I think the word you were looking for was 'another' ;)

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Silverburn

            Re: "and other"

            No, I believe there are two words I was looking for. And one of them wasn't 'another'.

            PS isn't it "THE vast majority, not A vast majority"?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Silverburn

              My esteemed gentleman, I'm afraid I must insist that "and other" is not a generally-accepted convention and has no meaning in the context you twice present it when subject to semantic scrutiny.

              In regards to your question: again if you apply logical thought processes to parsing those phrases, you will discover that both certainly make perfect sense. If you could find some reference to a well-respected opinion to the contrary, I would be most interested to learn of it.

              I would advise not to give up your day job in favour of becoming a grammar Nazi, however I find it difficult to believe that anyone with such atrocious communication skills could be employable in any capacity.

              1. Fibbles
                Facepalm

                You'll quite happily end a sentence with an emoticon rather than a full stop and yet you get your knickers in a twist over an incorrectly used apostrophe. If you're going to be a pedantic arse atleast do so uniformly.

              2. Silverburn
                Boffin

                Re: Silverburn

                Thank you for your valuable "contributions" to this discussion. I pray I am there on the day Skitt's (oooh) Law bites you in the ass, as is the fate of all pedants.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: IT'S = IT IS

        is you too mad stupid ta learn how ta use da apostrophe, if so then do not all ye damn hood ratz..

  3. g e

    represent a “genuine risk”

    And I bet I know which company offered to help mitigate that risk. For an appropriate fee.

  4. Turtle_Fan

    Those slightly older of us...

    ... Can still remember the intelligence agencies' verdict in the USSR just prior to its collapse:

    1) their economies are in rude health and expected to go on like this for the foreseeable future,

    2) their military is well-run, state of the art and its capabilities are growing

    And then the whole edifice came down and the spooks were pinching themselves in disbelief. So long as "intelligence" can be used to "steer" decision making and spending priorities, it will never be entirely wed to reality.

    (The CIA's internal express raison d'etre is to solidify and perpetuate its existence and nothing to do with real intelligence gathering).

    1. SiempreTuna

      Rash Assumption ..

      .. that the intelligence community weren't fully aware of the true state of play in the USSR.

      As you say, "intelligence" is frequently distorted / invented in order to influence policy. If you think that's conspiracy theorist BS, check out some of the podcasts from the CIA's Spy Museum where people involved discuss how intel "assessments" throughout the Bush presidency were only published if they agreed with the Bush administration view.

      Of course, that could be manipulation, too .. ;)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    "Advanced" Persistent Threat

    It surely is a Persistent Threat, but they are not advanced. Rather, US corporations are stuffed full of Dumb Fsck Managers and the result is that networks and computer systems are badly secured.

    Take the RSA case - they thought that highly sensitive computers with access to cryptologic systems needed the whole stinking comercialware pile - MS Office, Flash, Outlook installed

    I don't think anyone in a proper German company would have had such as stupid idea. If you want highest security levels, you need to strip systems down to the bare minimum and turn every non-essential feature off. If an engineer needs to perform office communications, he/she will get an additional PC.

    So the Chicoms are doing America a favour - they reveal hilarious security problems at a time they are moderately important.

    1. multipharious
      FAIL

      Proper German Company?

      I think your characterization of US corporations stuffed full of DFMs is a misguided position.

      Proper German companies? I won't topple your arrogance by telling what would be very embarrassing stories for you.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Proper German Company?

        Something like this:

        http://www.secunet.com/en/products-services/high-security/sina/

        1. multipharious

          Re: Proper German Company?

          I obviously cannot and will not give specific examples.

          Even air barriers and dedicated networks are not truly effective. Best practices aside, business must be done. I have personally witnessed that any organization that uses extremely restrictive barriers has staff or unintentional misconfigurations that circumvents all of it. I have watched as helpful IT Admins bypass the security measures. This is country independent. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more restrictive the network is, the more creative the employees get when presented with problems such as getting a PoC, production deployment, or upgrade done without physical access to the machine, restricted network access to block FTP or ssh, no USB ports active, and no DVD drives available. Some of the strictest controls are in Germany, and some of the worst examples I have seen have also been here. If IT staff will do it for me, then they do it for everyone for every system.

          Lay off the folks in the USA.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Holistically sophisticated technology?

          "At the top level of the SINA security layers are applications of varied classification that are strictly separated from each other. These contain widely available guest operating systems and applications encapsulated in virtual computers (PCs) on the one hand, and terminal-client functionalities on the other".

          "The software foundation of SINA technology is the severely pruned SINA Linux, which has been functionally hardened and intensely evaluated for security. Embedded in the system platform are a Smartcard as its cryptographic anchor and the cryptographic file systems".

          http://www.secunet.com/en/products-services/high-security/sina/

  6. bexley

    @AC 11:22

    What a prick

    1. John Stirling

      Re: @AC 11:22

      No, that should be "w'hat a pr'ick"

      If you cannot randomly insert apo'strophe's into your pro'se - e'specially before every ''s' - then plea'se dont bother ['sic]

  7. Inachu
    FAIL

    So far as I see it.

    So far as I see it My pc has never been attacked by a chinese IP address at home.

    At home the ip addresses I was always attacked from was either someplace in Russia or Moldovia. I did a brand new install of XP and turned off all security and sat and waited and it took less than 30 minutes to see an IP from Russia connect and remote control my pc.

    That is true today as it was 5 years ago when I did the same test.

    Funny if it was the same attacker.

  8. G Murphy
    FAIL

    Did no one notice that this paragraph makes absolutely no sense whatsoever?

    Although another exercise is reportedly scheduled for May, there is little sign that efforts – ... – to steal military and other strategically valuable information from the US mainly via advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks which are designed to go unnoticed.

    Makes pedantic AC and his apostrophe's look even more stupid.

  9. Dr Who

    WOPR

    Never mind apostrophes. If it weren't for noughts and crosses, we'd have been wiped out a long time ago.

    1. Ty Cobb
      Happy

      Re: WOPR

      +1 internets for the War Games reference

  10. John A Blackley

    "there is little sign that efforts ................ to steal military and other strategically valuable information from the US mainly via advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks which are designed to go unnoticed."

    Help!

  11. samlebon23
    Go

    They should do the real thing, and stop playing games.

    1. Ty Cobb

      I think the gist of it is, they are. Just not full scale, yet.

  12. Eduard Coli
    Facepalm

    Learn to speak Mandarin

    The PLA had fought a couple of proxy wars with the US with limited success and had generally assumed they would continue that success until they saw how technology had changed with how quickly Saddam's army had dissolved.

    Weakening the US and I'm sure elsewhere economically with counterfeit currency and a pegged yuan.

    "Opening" the domestic market to "Contained Capitalism" by inviting American and European manufacturing and getting them hooked on cheap labor and lax safety and environmental policies gave the PLA access to improved technology and method.

    Both above and below board bribery, er, campaign contributions kept American and possibly European politicians from enacting legislation or policy against PRC interests.

    Financing and helping Chinese nationals to gain access to higher education especially to technical schools brings home access to the newest tech innovations and research.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Learn to speak Mandarin

      Last time the PLA and the Americans duked it out it was a kind of draw (Korea). Technology deficits can always be compensated by disciplined and tough infantery. At least on land.

  13. asdf
    FAIL

    UK colonialism fail

    Granted UK colonialism made the US originally viable and some of what it is today but it sure seems failed UK colonial policies around the world have bitten the US harder than the UK. Virtually everyone one of our current enemies or frenemies were once with British colonies with a very bitter taste in their mouth from the experience (China, Pakistan, Iran (we helped on that one a lot), etc).

  14. asdf
    FAIL

    Chinese selective historical memory

    A century of humiliation by the British perhaps but didn't the US help free China from Japanese imperialism? Oh well what do you expect out of government that considers the all time worst ideological mass murderer of his own people a hero (Mao).

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Chinese selective historical memory

      I don't think it was only the British humiliating China at that time... all of the Western powers had some involvement, and Japan wanted (and got for a while) a piece too. Don't forget that the US supported the Nationalists against the Japanese, and they turned out to be the loosers in the subsequent civil war, so it's hardly a point in their favour.

      Anyway, I'm sure both sides are taking a pragmatic look at the situation now, International Politics isn't about morality, it's about what you can get away with, e.g. Iran-Contra affair, support for Saddam Hussein... add any examples you like from any World Power's history.

    2. crayon

      Re: Chinese selective historical memory

      "but didn't the US help free China from Japanese imperialism?"

      If by help you mean the US support for the Kuomintang then no. While the Communists were busy fighting the Japs the Kuomingtang were busy trying to exterminate the Communists. It took the kidnapping of the Kuomingtang leader Chiang Kai-shek to force them to agree to fight the Japs. And the Kuomingtang were notorious for being soldiers by day and looters by night.

  15. chris lively
    Headmaster

    And?

    So the US and china are doing cyber wargames... and china thinks the US is on the decline?

    Regarding wargames: so what. There is literally zero reason for china or the us to actually attack one another. Every major war boils down to economic reasons. ALL of them have.

    China vs the US would absolutely devastate the world economy and the futures of both countries. So, it won't happen.

    However, the Chinese are patient and the US is in the middle of a financial Implosion similar to wht happened to the USSR. All they have to do is wait us out and we lose. The EU barely got started before the wind was taken out of its sails with regards to solvency...

    I give 5 to 10 years max ( depends on who gets elected in November) before the US splits without a shot fired. Now that, in the eyes of several military strategists would be a total victory.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Past President Clinton... meh

    I'm glad Clinton signed China as the US's Most Favored Nation when he was in power..... that corrupt bastard.

  17. Seb123
    Trollface

    Full attack not necessary

    Soon China will be able to buy the US anyway. Maybe they can score a BOGOF deal and get Canada too.

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