
Marriott Data Breach Traced to Chinese Hackers, US Readies Crackdown on Beijing - jumelles
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/us/politics/trump-china-trade.html
======
ArchD
“China firmly opposes all forms of cyberattack and cracks down on it in
accordance with the law”

"In accordance with the law” is the sneaky part that lets them add all kinds
of 'Chinese characteristics' to whatever topic is being discussed. Their 'law'
is often phrased very broadly and interpreted with lots of freedom and in
practice is whatever the CPC wants. This is how they say one thing and do
another, always "according to the law".

~~~
tamizhar
> This is how they say one thing and do another, always "according to the
> law".

Wasn't there a country that alleged yellow cake, WMD and other things in order
to facilitate a grand mess in the Middle East. All perfectly legal according
to the law, right?

~~~
meowface
Yes, but there is not yet any proof that Bush or Cheney lied about these
things to start the war. Many in the CIA were genuinely convinced that Saddam
had WMDs and/or resources to create WMDs. They turned out to be completely
wrong, but it was their belief at the time. I wouldn't exactly be
flabbergasted or Bush or Cheney willfully lied, but just because that's a
common narrative doesn't mean it's substantiated.

Gulf of Tonkin would be a much better example.

------
royalconcierge
[http://m.spiegel.de/international/europe/gchq-monitors-
hotel...](http://m.spiegel.de/international/europe/gchq-monitors-hotel-
reservations-to-track-diplomats-a-933914.html)

did everyone forget the Snowden docs? NSA program ROYALCONCIERGE already
hacked into Starwood hotels and stole their entire database of booking and
guest dox. worst of all, the hack is persistent and tips off NSA in real time
the moment Abu Bakr Baghdadi checks in. or what if this hack was oh say The
Shadowbrokers using NSA'S backdoor to shame NSA and close the peep hole spying
on every guest of every Starwood hotel in the world? how do we really know
this hack wasn't NSA itself? who can you trust? trust no one. only believe
what you have seen with your own 5eyes and certainly never let spooks who lie
for a living trick you into going along with another Iraq war based on forged
evidence with all the Intelligence chiefs and crooked FBI directors swearing
to you on national TV that you just need to trust them, because the evidence
is classified, so they can't prove it to you, but you need to get on board
with believing in the new false flag Gulf of Tonkin and cheering for the new
war. if you don't support the war, then you disrespect the troops and you
should get the fuck out of America.

by the way,the Mirai hotel in Hong Kong where Snowden escaped to is a Starwood
hotel. isn't it funny that ROYALCONCEIRGE didn't tip off NSA as to exactly
where Snowden was the whole time? or maybe it did work and they were watching
him all along.

~~~
dsplittgerber
Sorry to be nit-picky, but that sounds conspiracy theory-ish. The link you
provided does not back-up your claim of the NSA having hacked the Starwood
database. The linked article makes it sound like as a by-product of massively
vacuuming up internet traffic, GCHQ has been able to track hotel booking
confirmations sent to gov.whatever addresses. Which is noteworthy but (legally
and morally) not as sinister as active measures.

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varenc
I'd be really interested in seeing the declassified intelligence the article
mentions that points the finger at Chinese-intelligence. While proving that
the attackers originate in China might be easy, clearly connecting this to a
government-supported operation seems quite a challenge involving long chains
of reasoning. It's probably not feasible to release all the info needed to
independently verify this, but we'll see.

I can also imagine how this line could be blurry... perhaps the government
quietly permits more profit motivated blackhat operations in exchange for some
intelligence sharing. And really the perfect "cyber attack" shouldn't be
attributable at all.

~~~
n-gatedotcom
Replace Chinese with Russian and ask yourself if you still want to see the
declassified Intel.

~~~
cyphar
You should always ask for evidence for claims. A quick reminder that the US
intelligence community _lied_ to the Bush administration about WMDs in Iraq,
as well as about the existence of PRISM and related programs. Trusting the
intelligence community, in the absence of evidence, is hardly a reasonable
standpoint.

Why would it matter if the claim were Russia, China, or North Korea?

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stcredzero
Given the long history of nation-states engaging in false flag premises for
both diplomacy and "diplomacy by other means," how much scrutiny should we
give to nation-states claims of hacking? How easy or hard is it to fake such
claims? I should think it's much easier to fake than hiding nuclear weapons or
instances of armed violence.

~~~
mc32
People do this all the time when they don't want to believe. At one point
people didn't want to believe North Korea was the perpetrator of the Sony
Hack, for political reasons, but then for other political reasons people were
sure it was North Korea. Just like the email hacks --people tend to believe or
not believe depending a lot on their ideology and how it aligns with them,
unfortunately.

~~~
freeflight
> People do this all the time when they don't want to believe.

People do this all the time because people working in the sector know [0] that
attribution, with anything "cyber", is near impossible, if the attackers know
what they are doing it actually is impossible. As such most attribution
usually boils down to guessing games based on code samples and used attack
vectors but rarely, if ever, on anything actually solid.

[0]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/01/attack_attrib...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/01/attack_attribut.html)

~~~
lawnchair_larry
_People do this all the time because people working in the sector know [0]
that attribution, with anything "cyber", is near impossible, if the attackers
know what they are doing it actually is impossible._

This is wrong. Schneier has no idea what he is talking about (as usual). The
funny part is that he opens with skepticism about the North Korea/Sony hack,
of which many were skeptical early on, but now is not disputed by anybody. So
he was wrong about that too. So very wrong. Especially this line:

 _More likely, the culprits are random hackers who have loved to hate Sony for
over a decade, or possibly a disgruntled insider._

I'll be honest, I was skeptical of that one too. But I knew what I didn't
know, so instead of challenging experts or trying to get my uninformed opinion
out in the public sphere, I kept that to myself. And when I heard someone _who
I know would know_ make the NK claim without hesitation, it made me re-
evaluate some assumptions. When it turned out that they were correct, I knew
it was not a lucky guess.

Attribution is not easy, but it's absolutely not impossible in all cases, or
even difficult in many cases.

People who understand technology make a lot of assumptions about how
attribution works, and then make assertions like this. Attribution isn't
simply that the bad packets came from a Chinese IP address.

A good rant on the topic is here: [http://www.robertmlee.org/russian-election-
meddling-grizzley...](http://www.robertmlee.org/russian-election-meddling-
grizzleysteppe-and-bananas/)

~~~
freeflight
> When it turned out that they were correct, I knew it was not a lucky guess.

And when did that happen? You do realize that the US DoJ charging somebody
still isn't "evidence"? Just like claims that some NK agents coded something
are mostly based on code heuristics and usually nothing else.

> Attribution isn't simply that the bad packets came from a Chinese IP
> address.

Where did I ever claim that? It's the whole reason why I pointed out what I
did. Even your linked "rant" agrees that much:

> Attribution is not done with single pieces of evidence or a smoking gun it
> is done as analysis on complex data sets most of which is not even technical

"most of which is not even technical"

Just because you are clustering together a bunch of assumptions still doesn't
make them any more than assumptions. Just like companies working in the sector
have a vested interest in making it look like they are more certain than they
actually are because nobody pays them for "maybes", people pay them with the
expectation of getting solid answers.

In that context, it does not really help to harp on about "MOs" and how other
security firms totally agreed with some attribution, they are all just wild-
guessing based on what they expect the opposition to use and what fits their
"MO". Assumptions which are extremely easy to exploit for anybody willing to
go the distance.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
You have no experience in this. Why do you keep insisting on challenging
experts in the field? Clustering assumptions is still not accurate. Give it a
rest.

~~~
freeflight
That's rich coming from somebody who claimed Bruce Schneier doesn't know what
he's talking about, before linking to a "rant", driving down exactly the same
points I made, by a CEO of an InfoSec outfit, a former NSA spook to boot,
praising the accuracy of his own service.

Sorry, but let's just agree to disagree, it's clear there ain't anything else
left to do here.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Sounds good. You clearly have no idea how this industry works, and don't know
who is reputable and who is not.

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setquk
I thought this was Marriott's fault? Perhaps US should crack down on
Marriott...

~~~
sgt
That was my thought as well. If this is due to gross negligence from
Marriott's side, it's more their fault than the hackers. At least that's my
personal opinion.

------
joshfraser
Anytime the government claims that a hack originated from a specific country,
assume it's politically motivated.

~~~
Angostura
... or that they have evidence that the hack originated from the specific
country. One or the other.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Why not both?

~~~
Angostura
Sorry, that was indeed an inclusive or.

------
HillaryBriss
what is it about China and Marriott hotels?

there was also that time they made the company fire that employee
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16515274](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16515274)

------
duchenne
Thanks to Snowden, we have hard proofs that the USA have been using hacking on
a very large scale for multiple goals including industrial espionage.

Now, they say that their #1 economic rival is using hacking to steal data.
But, there is no evidence.

At least, before the Irak invasion, the US made some efforts to forge some
fake proofs that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction.

------
AzzieElbab
An internet facing rdp with user name and pw creation guidelines should be
"traced" back to Marriott 's IT.

------
mancerayder
_But while top administration officials insist that the trade talks are
proceeding on a separate track, the broader crackdown on China could undermine
Mr. Trump’s ability to reach an agreement with Mr. Xi.

Mr. Trump, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, said that he would
consider intervening in the Huawei case if it would help serve national
security and help get a trade deal done with China. Such a move would
essentially pit Mr. Trump against his own Justice Department, which
coordinated with Canada to arrest Ms. Meng as she changed planes in
Vancouver._

I wonder if it's because Huawei's equipment or staff played a role, or if they
just want to use Meng as a bargaining chip in the demands regarding
cybersecurity and IP.

~~~
jorblumesea
Meng's father, Ren Zhengfei, is an ex-PLA officer and has deep connections to
the CCP. Her arrest and the timing of it are not coincidences. Notice the
reaction of government media outlets in China.

It's a direct method of pressuring China's political elite.

~~~
acct1771
Where would an English speaker be able to do this?

------
wybiral
People demanding to see evidence here have to realize that information like
that tends to stay classified for some time as ongoing operations are put in
jeopardy just by announcing this.

It's also from the justice department, meaning multiple groups of eyes were on
this decision, not a few anti-China hawks. China does have a history of this
kind of behavior.

~~~
King-Aaron
I honestly find it quite concerning how much pro-chinese-government support
bubbles up on platforms like HN, etc. Nothing against individuals in China,
but as an entity the government (as with all governments) should be heavily
scrutinized.

It's definitely the government's SOP to try and exfiltrate data from the west,
and it's no small secret. I feel everyone is getting pretty nonchalant about
it.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
My problem with it is that the US government does plenty of horrible shit,
including spying, warfare and torture.

The Snowden leaks showed without a doubt that US intelligence has no qualms
collecting and admitting to spying on ALL communication between non-US
citizens. Without telling anyone... hacking a marriot database is peanuts in
comparison.

Somehow whatever the US does to protect its interests is moral but when
another country does the same its evil or "concerning". Bullshit US
paternalism.

~~~
fermienrico
Your comment, and similar cliche arguments on HN are _tiring_ to refute over
and over and over.

Before you put US on the same pedestal of morality as China, you must equate
them on apples to apples basis. Picking and choosing horrible things US has
done in the past is very convenient.

I immigrated to US and I’ve travelled _extensively_ over the world. If you’re
picking and choosing Guantanamo, Iraq war, etc. then I can do the same about
Tianman square.

Let’s objectively assess the situation without picking and choosing - I can do
the same about positive aspects of US: functioning justice system,
representative democracy, cultural diversity and acceptance, LGBT rights,
freedom of speech, freedom of press, right to run for public office, ... we
could go on and on about this with no end.

I have a humble request: When arguing about A, please do not talk about B to
escape the reality and scrutiny that A deserves. It’s distracting and tiring.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> Before you put US on the same pedestal of morality as China, you must equate
> them on apples to apples basis.

I think the mistake you make here is that we're talking about China's
interaction vs the rest of the world and comparing that to U.S. interaction vs
the rest of the world, which is more important to many than what is done
domestically, because most of the people on here aren't in China, but the U.S.
interference affects them even if they're not in the U.S., which is mostly not
true for China.

How many coups has China been involved in as compared to the U.S. for example?
Because these affect people on the other end of the globe from the U.S.

Why was there a military-style raid on Kim Dotcom in NZ, for something that is
possibly a crime in the U.S.?

Why was there pressure put on Sweden to prosecute TPB from the U.S. side?

How come the U.S. claims to believe in the free market, but when a Chinese
firm gets competitive there, they try to block them?

How come U.S. feels entitled to bomb in foreign territory, where they were not
invited by the local government? Without UN approval at that?

How come U.S. feels entitled to bully other nations at the UN to vote their
way on Palestine?

How come is it OK for the U.S. to attack a country that did not attack them?

How is it OK to go to war on a completely false pretext?

How is it OK for the U.S. to use chemical weapons?

How is it legal for the U.S. to commit terrorist acts in other countries?

How is it OK for the U.S. to tell other countries that they can't have nuclear
weapons even as the U.S. is the only country to ever use the in war?

How is it moral for the U.S. to block civilian and medical goods, starve a
country and help commit war crimes?

There are plenty of more local issues too, like the War on Drugs, the
targeting of minority communities, the infiltration of civil rights groups,
the jailing of whistleblowers and intimidation of journalists etc. but the
above affects much of the world in some way or another.

This is why U.S. behavior is seen as such a problem outside its own borders.
China has nowhere near the worldwide reach the U.S. does.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Yes, thank you for putting it so clearly. I’m concerned about how US/China
affect the REST OF US (WE EXIST, THERE ARE 5 BILLION OF US, HELLO THERE!), so
arguments about how well the US treats its own people or how poorly China
treats theirs are completely immaterial to me. Its about how those countries
operate outside their own borders.

------
jorblumesea
I really hope the Western countries severely curtail China's ability to
operate in the West. Ban their companies, ban party officials and employees
operating in the West, completely lock them down and out of the rest of the
world.

They need to understand there are real consequences for these actions.

~~~
golfer
Ban their companies, like Foxconn, that builds all iPhones?

What about all the hundreds of billions of dollars in other goods that are
manufactured there that the West is reliant on?

I also want to see consequences for these actions, but the situation is more
nuanced than you seem to realize.

~~~
fiblye
Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. They'd be unable to export things from their
Chinese factories, but I doubt it'd affect them much.

