Ghosts, Machines, and How Paranoid am I Supposed to be?

These are two responses from the Chinese government after articles that accuse the Chinese government of creating and maintaining elite cyber-armies that are capable of assaulting any foreign government.

“There is a ghost called the Cold War and a virus called the Theory of China’s Threat overseas,… Some people, possessed by this ghost and infected with this virus, ‘fall ill’ from time to time. Their attempts at using rumors to disgrace China will never succeed… It is the ghost and the virus that should be ferreted out” - Qin Gang (April 2009)

“Saying that the Chinese military has made cyber-attacks on the networks of foreign governments is groundless and irresponsible and are a result of ulterior motives” – Jiang Yu (September 2007)




BELOW is a piece of a conversation with a good friend of mine who has been in China for awhile now that started when Google started talking about withdrawing from China because of hackers.

Him:
I can't judge [Chinese] Gov't involvement [in international hacking], but I can smell change in the wind and its falling along national lines. There's momentum building in the U.S. against the Chinese hacking world. I'm worried that the US government is doing similar things, but we just don't know about it. I can't find anything about american cyber intellegence or american cyberarmies. Perhaps, that's because our gov't agencies do a better job of covering their tracks?

My Response:
As I understand it, the US has similar positions, but not nearly as many (kind of like everything in the US v China contest). I am lead to believe the Chinese hackers are more elite, but then again the US hackers could just be behind more complicated firewalls, creating the illusion that the Chinese are more adept.

The guy that works out of a military base and has his own blog about Chinese hackers seems to believe the US is totally unprepared for a cyber attack, and all signs suggest that he is correct.

The major problem in finding information about it is the natural secrecy and mystique of what hackers are actually doing makes the topic shaded at best. However, the most difficult problem being informed about International Secret Government Wars is that we do not know any solid information except what we see. Er go, if the topic is intended to be secret, then how can we believe the things we do see? This thought would suggest both governments have some kind of super double secret hacker armies, and that level of absurdity is difficult for me to believe.

What I think is that the Chinese are much better in this field, or at least ahead of the game. Considering the median age of Chinese officials being closer to 100 than 50 leads me to believe that the government is probably involved, but not heavily. The outspoken attacks on high profile U.S. government websites, and now Corporations, does not seem like an intelligent thing for a government to coordinate, as it shows the other player your hand. The hackers work against each other because that is where the challenge lies for them, but they do that without anyone telling or asking them to. Some of them probably work for the government giving them access to newer faster technology, but I doubt they are incited to use their job to go after the US in a professional capacity.

Then again, I always love a good Double Secret Hidden War of Data!

-E

There is plenty of information circulating about this right now, but The Dark Visitor has information going back years and he seems to be the most informed American on the issue. At least the most informed who is talking.