
Chinese hackers are arrested at the behest of the U.S. government - billconan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-a-first-chinese-hackers-are-arrested-at-the-behest-of-the-us-government/2015/10/09/0a7b0e46-6778-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
======
TACIXAT
I feel the US must have a gun to China's head right now. This is such a stark
reversal from what we believed was going on over the past few years. The fact
that China would agree to stop attacking the US, much less arrest those
involved is mind blowing.

Previously, it appeared that the hacking groups worked very closely with the
government. They would attack targets that would directly benefit state run
organizations. For China to flip and arrest the people who they employed tells
me the US has some serious leverage right now. Either that or these arrests
are just a show and won't stick.

~~~
sharetea
Money talks, and China's in serious trouble and it desperately needs to
cooperate with US. That's why the Chinese president _came_ to US to resolve
issues with cyberhacking.

\- $141.66bn capital left China in August
[http://bit.ly/1jh7E7z](http://bit.ly/1jh7E7z)

\- "by 2018 all of China's excess reserves — cash that it has on hand to use
immediately — could be gone." [http://read.bi/1jkK6hv](http://read.bi/1jkK6hv)

\- "actual Chinese GDP is probably a third lower than is officially reported"
[http://bit.ly/1JsjaC0](http://bit.ly/1JsjaC0)

\- "The exodus of factories moving out of China in search of lower-cost
options in southeast and central Asia is accelerating, as manufacturers face
increased pressure to reduce unit costs."
[http://bit.ly/1hw8Zp3](http://bit.ly/1hw8Zp3)

\- "average new home prices in China’s 70 major cities dropped 6.1 per cent"
[http://bit.ly/1jh9eGp](http://bit.ly/1jh9eGp)

\- "Total debt has reached 282 percent of GDP"
[http://bloom.bg/1evYSQ5](http://bloom.bg/1evYSQ5)

~~~
huac
That the Chinese government likely over-estimates GDP is widely known (some
indicators are reported magnitudes faster than any other country). The
increased debt and factory exodus are probably uniformly bad.

On the other hand, a decrease in cash reserves is almost certainly in China's
favor. The government has been struggling for years to get rid of its enormous
US currency holdings. Especially as we start to see the yuan strengthening and
the Fed raise interest rates, it's important for China to extract as much
value out of the USD as soon as possible.

~~~
sharetea
1.) Dollar is strengthening. Janet Yellen said she'll raise rates by the end
of the year. Most emerging market currencies have crashed 25-40% this year.

2.) Yuan is weakening. Otherwise Chinese corporate dollar-denominated debts,
which is around 1 trillion, will crush the economy right away when the fed
raises rates. Plus the government already signaled it is willing to guide yuan
lower a month ago.

3.) That's kinda like saying 'well, my 3 houses in the hamptons are burning
down, but at least wood structure is the strongest right now!'

~~~
huac
Hmm. Haven't followed the econ beat in the last couple months, my bad.

I don't follow your 3rd point though. What do you mean?

------
chenster
Of course, NSA is not a state-sponsored hacker organization.

~~~
Buge
Well in this case we are asking China to stop hacking for commercial profits.
The NSA doesn't hack for commercial profits. We aren't criticizing China for
hacking the OPM in this case.

------
kelukelugames
Do you think China arrested talented hackers or dummy replacements?

~~~
omginternets
Honest (albeit provocative) question: from a political point of view, does it
matter?

The fact that China is willing arrest any of their own citizens at the behest
of the US government is a pretty big deal. I'm not sure exactly what it means,
but China doesn't strike me as the kind of country that's especially keen on
being the US's lapdog.

~~~
userbinator
_China doesn 't strike me as the kind of country that's especially keen on
being the US's lapdog._

I agree, and it's also possible that they arrest the real ones, sentence them,
and then let them out the back door sometime later.

------
pkinsky
This is probably somehow related:

>U.S. officials could soon send a Navy ship steaming by a chain of man-made
islands that China has built in the South China Sea, Pentagon officials said,
potentially exacerbating tensions in an area in which Beijing is expanding its
presence.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/10/08...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/10/08/u-s-
navy-to-china-well-sail-our-ships-near-your-man-made-islands-whenever-we-
want/)

------
on_
Finally. It's refreshing to see US try to drive a stake between the corporate
interests and a big monolithic government. This is a country that is spying on
economic allies all over the world and callaborates by horse trading secrets
to corporate interests. I understand that they can't talk about the length of
the list, who is on it or the crimes they comitted, but just knowing they they
have a list feels like justice to me, and these hackers will face retribution.

China has to realize that it is hurting the financial position of the entire
country and it's own credibility, by funneling secrets to private companies.
If the reverse were true in the US, companies funneling secrets to the
governement, it would be treason. America has the advantage of complete
isolation of the government and corporations, which just isn't possible in a
communist nation, so only in the most _extreme_ cases do the two share
finances or data.

China approves state sanctioned hacking against their allies and citizens in
private companies and it gives them an unfair advantage. If private companies
had that sort of clout in the US, you would see laws structured favourably for
corporations and they would yield a lot more political influence. China is the
kind of country that would commit industrial espionage against private
companies it is allied with economically and politically. If it were possible
for them to configure Danish and Malaysian servers via network and physical
intrusion, they would be able to tactically engineer a super virus that would
affect >50% of a whole country, not to mention collatoral damage. It would
hurt the companies reputation, jeopardize it's secrets and causing them
millions in damages as well as the hundreds of thousands affectd.

The article says:

"Chinese prosecution would entail the United States sharing evidence linking
the cyberintrusions to the individuals. And to do so could compromise
sensitive information on how the U.S. government tracked the suspects."

THESE ARE HACKERS. We shouldn't be afraid to get a win once in a while. We
have to do something and a good first step would be to go to China, and tell
them how we caught them breaking into private companies in the US and abroad,
and we were able to document these records. They need to know that if they hit
a multinational, a data center, resedential citizens, etc. that we are there,
we will catch you and we will bring you to justice.

Im glad the US is taking a stand against this. I look forward to watching
these hackers face trial, but ultimately, their government and citizens should
be ashamed of themselves. It's a shame the Cyber Security bill failed to pass
the senate a few months ago, that way organizations would monitor for cyber
threat indicators and they would be forced to protect us from these hackers. I
think I echo the words of the unnamed source, when I say "Look, here’s these
guys. Round them up".

~~~
enlightenedfool
"their government and citizens should be ashamed of themselves" Really? Are
you ashamed of your government's cyber attacks on other nations? I could just
replace the word "China" with "USA" in your comment and everything is still
true.

~~~
mahranch
> Really? Are you ashamed of your government's cyber attacks on other nations?

The U.S does minimal hacking and when it does, it's nearly surgical in nature.
It's a precise target for a precise reason. This is unlike other countries'
hacking (read: China & Russia) where it's indiscriminate and relentless. They
hope to steal anything and everything.

The world isn't black & white. It's infinite shades of grey. Believe it or
not, one form of hacking can be "less bad" than another form. Regardless,
China and Russia's government hacking programs are orders of magnitude larger
than the U.S's program.

> I could just replace the word "China" with "USA" in your comment and
> everything is still true.

No you couldn't. Again, the world isn't black and white and not all crimes are
the same. Is a mass murderer and a petty thief the same? They're both
criminals, right? If you don't think they're the same, then you begin to
understand that the world isn't black and white.

------
seansmccullough
Doesn't make up for the OPM hack.

Conspiracy theory: The CIA helped crash the Chinese stock market in response

------
ivanca
I feel bad for the hackers, their government orders them to hack some US
servers, then their government arrests them for doing their job. Each a
scapegoat if I ever saw one.

------
curiousjorge
Reason why the Chinese might be cooperating is because the US has a very
significant person of interest on their soils, one that the Chinese party is
desperate to get back because this man knows state secrets and inner workings
of the secretive CCP.

