China Denies Hacking Pentagon Computers - Alternative Even More Embarassing For US Security

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- The Chinese government called allegations that

its military hacked the Pentagon's computer network over the summer

"groundless", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday.

"The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking

crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the

law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

Officially, the United States has not accused Beijing of cracking into

the military e-mail system that serves Defense Secretary Robert Gates

and hundreds of other department employees.

But, behind the scenes, a senior Bush administration official told CNN

that China is the No. 1 suspect in the June hacking incident. On

Monday, the Financial Times of London also reported that Washington

believed China was responsible.

"Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly

saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network,"

Jiang said. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War

mentality."

She called hacking an international problem and said that China has

also been attacked.

"China would like to work with other countries to take measures to

crack down on Web crime," according to Jiang.

In Australia ahead of the APEC summit, reporters asked President Bush

on Wednesday if he would bring up the issue of hackers with Chinese

President Hu Jintao when the two leaders meet Thursday.

"I'm very aware that a lot of our systems are vulnerable to cyber

attack from a variety of places," Bush said at a joint news conference

with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

"In terms of whether or not I'll bring this up to countries that we

suspect may -- from which there may have been an attack, I may."

- - - - -

Gee, six years after 9-11 and our most sensitive military

systems are STILL vulnerable to cyber-attack ??? What's

that mean, that even in the home of the PC we're now 2nd

fiddle to foreign hackers ???

Maybe we should hire Halliburton to fix the problems ;

it's where all our other cash is going anyway ......

China HAS admitted in the past that it's persued the

technology of cyber-war. Russia recently launched an

effective cyber-attack on neighboring Estonia over

an argument about an old Soviet WW-2 statue. The

heavily-'connected' nations banking and e-commerce

systems were paralyzed. So, this kind of stuff DOES

go on and DOES work as advertised. It seems like

effective defenses would be a high-priority item.

Was the Chinese GOVERNMENT responsible for the latest

spying ? Hard to tell. We may never know unless someone

'leaks'. Clearly there IS a lot of computing talent in

China and its hackers are well beyond US/Euro law. We

may be looking at the work of a single highly-caffeinated

14-year-old ... which would make the breech even more of

an embarassment for US security. If some punk hack can

get in, imagine what the Chinese government could do

if we pissed 'em off .....

On Sep 5, 8:22 am, b...@barrk.net (B1ackwater) wrote:

> BEIJING, China (CNN) -- The Chinese government called allegations that

> its military hacked the Pentagon's computer network over the summer

> "groundless", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday.

>

> "The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking

> crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the

> law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

>

> Officially, the United States has not accused Beijing of cracking into

> the military e-mail system that serves Defense Secretary Robert Gates

> and hundreds of other department employees.

>

> But, behind the scenes, a senior Bush administration official told CNN

> that China is the No. 1 suspect in the June hacking incident. On

> Monday, the Financial Times of London also reported that Washington

> believed China was responsible.

>

> "Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly

> saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network,"

> Jiang said. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War

> mentality."

>

> She called hacking an international problem and said that China has

> also been attacked.

>

> "China would like to work with other countries to take measures to

> crack down on Web crime," according to Jiang.

>

> In Australia ahead of the APEC summit, reporters asked President Bush

> on Wednesday if he would bring up the issue of hackers with Chinese

> President Hu Jintao when the two leaders meet Thursday.

>

> "I'm very aware that a lot of our systems are vulnerable to cyber

> attack from a variety of places," Bush said at a joint news conference

> with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

>

> "In terms of whether or not I'll bring this up to countries that we

> suspect may -- from which there may have been an attack, I may."

>

> - - - - -

>

> Gee, six years after 9-11 and our most sensitive military

> systems are STILL vulnerable to cyber-attack ??? What's

> that mean, that even in the home of the PC we're now 2nd

> fiddle to foreign hackers ???

>

> Maybe we should hire Halliburton to fix the problems ;

> it's where all our other cash is going anyway ......

>

> China HAS admitted in the past that it's persued the

> technology of cyber-war. Russia recently launched an

> effective cyber-attack on neighboring Estonia over

> an argument about an old Soviet WW-2 statue. The

> heavily-'connected' nations banking and e-commerce

> systems were paralyzed. So, this kind of stuff DOES

> go on and DOES work as advertised. It seems like

> effective defenses would be a high-priority item.

>

> Was the Chinese GOVERNMENT responsible for the latest

> spying ? Hard to tell. We may never know unless someone

> 'leaks'. Clearly there IS a lot of computing talent in

> China and its hackers are well beyond US/Euro law. We

> may be looking at the work of a single highly-caffeinated

> 14-year-old ... which would make the breech even more of

> an embarassment for US security. If some punk hack can

> get in, imagine what the Chinese government could do

> if we pissed 'em off .....

The US needs a unix variant written in osimplay.

Note to Secret Service: I wrote osimplay.

ftp.gwdg.de/cLIeNUX/interim or something like that,

mirrored on eg. ibiblio.

Rick Hohensee

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:45:25 -0700, "hohenseerick@yahoo.com"

<rick_hohensee@email.com> wrote:

>On Sep 5, 8:22 am, b...@barrk.net (B1ackwater) wrote:

>> BEIJING, China (CNN) -- The Chinese government called allegations that

>> its military hacked the Pentagon's computer network over the summer

>> "groundless", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday.

>>

>> "The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking

>> crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the

>> law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

>>

>> Officially, the United States has not accused Beijing of cracking into

>> the military e-mail system that serves Defense Secretary Robert Gates

>> and hundreds of other department employees.

>>

>> But, behind the scenes, a senior Bush administration official told CNN

>> that China is the No. 1 suspect in the June hacking incident. On

>> Monday, the Financial Times of London also reported that Washington

>> believed China was responsible.

>>

>> "Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly

>> saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network,"

>> Jiang said. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War

>> mentality."

>>

>> She called hacking an international problem and said that China has

>> also been attacked.

>>

>> "China would like to work with other countries to take measures to

>> crack down on Web crime," according to Jiang.

>>

>> In Australia ahead of the APEC summit, reporters asked President Bush

>> on Wednesday if he would bring up the issue of hackers with Chinese

>> President Hu Jintao when the two leaders meet Thursday.

>>

>> "I'm very aware that a lot of our systems are vulnerable to cyber

>> attack from a variety of places," Bush said at a joint news conference

>> with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

>>

>> "In terms of whether or not I'll bring this up to countries that we

>> suspect may -- from which there may have been an attack, I may."

>>

>> - - - - -

>>

>> Gee, six years after 9-11 and our most sensitive military

>> systems are STILL vulnerable to cyber-attack ??? What's

>> that mean, that even in the home of the PC we're now 2nd

>> fiddle to foreign hackers ???

>>

>> Maybe we should hire Halliburton to fix the problems ;

>> it's where all our other cash is going anyway ......

>>

>> China HAS admitted in the past that it's persued the

>> technology of cyber-war. Russia recently launched an

>> effective cyber-attack on neighboring Estonia over

>> an argument about an old Soviet WW-2 statue. The

>> heavily-'connected' nations banking and e-commerce

>> systems were paralyzed. So, this kind of stuff DOES

>> go on and DOES work as advertised. It seems like

>> effective defenses would be a high-priority item.

>>

>> Was the Chinese GOVERNMENT responsible for the latest

>> spying ? Hard to tell. We may never know unless someone

>> 'leaks'. Clearly there IS a lot of computing talent in

>> China and its hackers are well beyond US/Euro law. We

>> may be looking at the work of a single highly-caffeinated

>> 14-year-old ... which would make the breech even more of

>> an embarassment for US security. If some punk hack can

>> get in, imagine what the Chinese government could do

>> if we pissed 'em off .....

>

>The US needs a unix variant written in osimplay.

>Note to Secret Service: I wrote osimplay.

>ftp.gwdg.de/cLIeNUX/interim or something like that,

>mirrored on eg. ibiblio.

Well, the US government, businesses and individuals

should DUMP "Windows" into the nearest trash bin

fer-sure. "Vista" isn't even worthy of the trash

bin and should be shredded and flushed down the

toilet. I spent my long weekend fixing two

peoples new computers ... ie removing Vista and

installing XP.

I've heard many govt agencies have forbidden 'Vista'

entirely and even before that many would not allow

their people to use IE for anything.

There are quite a number of unix/Linux packages out

there now. Many are quite good, very usable. A few

more 'wizards' and 'AI' would be a help but all in

all they're ready for prime time. SUSE, Kubuntu,

Fedora, Xandros and such are "slick" systems now

and OS-X is just polished-up BSD unix. ALL of them

are more secure than ANY version of Winders EVER

was (or ever WILL be if Vista is a sign) right

out of the box and a few tweaks can make them

extremely tight and tough.

But the DoD ... frankly, might they benifit from

a completely proprietary OS ? One that's not known

in and out by half the teenagers in China ?

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:22:07 GMT, bw@barrk.net (B1ackwater) wrote:

>BEIJING, China (CNN) -- The Chinese government called allegations that

>its military hacked the Pentagon's computer network over the summer

>"groundless", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday.

>

>"The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking

>crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the

>law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

>

>Officially, the United States has not accused Beijing of cracking into

>the military e-mail system that serves Defense Secretary Robert Gates

>and hundreds of other department employees.

>

>But, behind the scenes, a senior Bush administration official told CNN

>that China is the No. 1 suspect in the June hacking incident. On

>Monday, the Financial Times of London also reported that Washington

>believed China was responsible.

>

>"Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly

>saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network,"

>Jiang said. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War

>mentality."

>

>She called hacking an international problem and said that China has

>also been attacked.

>

>"China would like to work with other countries to take measures to

>crack down on Web crime," according to Jiang.

>

>In Australia ahead of the APEC summit, reporters asked President Bush

>on Wednesday if he would bring up the issue of hackers with Chinese

>President Hu Jintao when the two leaders meet Thursday.

>

>"I'm very aware that a lot of our systems are vulnerable to cyber

>attack from a variety of places," Bush said at a joint news conference

>with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

>

>"In terms of whether or not I'll bring this up to countries that we

>suspect may -- from which there may have been an attack, I may."

>

>- - - - -

>

> Gee, six years after 9-11 and our most sensitive military

> systems are STILL vulnerable to cyber-attack ??? What's

> that mean, that even in the home of the PC we're now 2nd

> fiddle to foreign hackers ???

There are some related facts that should be seen as the

backdrop of this, perhaps.

The US government under Clinton sold China enough

supercomputers that it had more computing power at it's disposal at

one point than the Pentagon did. It's true that the Pentagon isn't

where codes are made and broken (NSA), or where weapons are designed

(national labs, aerospace companies, etc), but that's kind of like

what Mark Twain said about Wagner's music; "It's not as bad as it

sounds".

>

> Maybe we should hire Halliburton to fix the problems ;

> it's where all our other cash is going anyway ......

Considering that Halliburton is charging 4 - 5 times as much

as it should for projects in Iraq that it isn't doing anyway, AND

stealing Army vehicles, what makes you think that the problem would

ever be fixed no matter how much you were paying them (I know you

know, but that's for the people who think Halliburton is a great

patriotic institution).

>

> China HAS admitted in the past that it's persued the

> technology of cyber-war.

Two Chinese air force colonels wrote a book called "Total War"

or something like that on how they thought the US might be defeated if

it was at war with China, and cyber-attack was just one of the avenues

of attack they mentioned.

>Russia recently launched an

> effective cyber-attack on neighboring Estonia over

> an argument about an old Soviet WW-2 statue. The

> heavily-'connected' nations banking and e-commerce

> systems were paralyzed. So, this kind of stuff DOES

> go on and DOES work as advertised. It seems like

> effective defenses would be a high-priority item.

The best defense is for critical US government services and

agencies to get the hell off line wherever possible. THAT is security.

ANY computer connected to the net can be hacked, period, is what they

say. Rick Hohensee says his CLiEnUx is "bulletproof", however.

>

> Was the Chinese GOVERNMENT responsible for the latest

> spying ? Hard to tell. We may never know unless someone

> 'leaks'. Clearly there IS a lot of computing talent in

> China and its hackers are well beyond US/Euro law. We

> may be looking at the work of a single highly-caffeinated

> 14-year-old ... which would make the breech even more of

> an embarassment for US security. If some punk hack can

> get in, imagine what the Chinese government could do

> if we pissed 'em off .....

Well, that's a bit of a double edged sword. Considering that

the CIA showed itself capable of getting bugs onto a plane for the

Chinese president during it's construction phase under the noses of

their anti-spy people, and that most of China's supercomputers are of

US manufacture, I wouldn't get too worried just yet.