
Chinese military scaled back cyberthefts after indictments, U.S. officials say - molecule
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/following-us-indictments-chinese-military-scaled-back-hacks-on-american-industry/2015/11/30/fcdb097a-9450-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html
======
tn13
Honestly I don't trust the government on national security anymore. They waged
a war wasting $1.7T of our wealth, they lied and continue to lie about
snooping. I am not sure if US government is not helpless before Chinese
aggression. When the source of information is only government and no third
party to verify all the claims we better assume the government is simply
lying.

~~~
vox_mollis
[meta] This is truly getting absurd. The recent, but incessant downvoting of
anyone who is skeptical of authority or the mouthpieces of the status quo.
What is happening to HN?

For the purposes of this article in particular, attribution ranges from
_extremely_ hard to impossible, but the downvoters are expecting the parent to
swallow the government's statements at face value, without question? As if the
USG possesses some sort of magical crystal ball for incident attribution?

~~~
derefr
I have no problem with an argument about why you shouldn't believe something.
I _do_ have a problem with "vacuous skepticism"—a comment saying purely "this
is doubtful and I remain skeptical" is the photonegative of a "this" or "me
too" comment: a way to say "I [upvoted/downvoted] but I also want to say words
to the same effect to call attention to myself, without adding anything to the
discussion." It's an applause light; a magnet for upvotes from the same people
who voted in a given direction on the story itself.

------
steve19
Or did they? From the article ...

“For a period of time following the indictments, there was a very significant
decrease” by the PLA, said a second U.S. official. “And today we are
definitely not at the level that we were before the indictments.”

...

The Unit 61398 hackers stopped their activity for a while, but other parts of
the military continued their operations, and the Shanghai group eventually
resumed using other tools, said an intelligence analyst at FireEye, which now
owns Mandiant."

Sounds like they are just covering their tracks better. The most likely
consequence, at best, would have been a Chinese Colonel was fired/reassigned
and replaced with a newly promoted technocrat who has been told not to be
caught.

Business as usual ...

~~~
jevinskie
Precisely. I can easily imagine the same story with the countries' roles
flipped.

------
PhilWright
Somewhat hypocritical for the USA to complain about hacking.

We know the resources/extent of NSA capabilities and so it is pretty certain
their spying efforts dwarf anything China does. I mean we know they spied on
the German chancellor and she is on our side!

~~~
learc83
It's not really the spying that bothers people. Nearly every country is
constantly spying on every other country. What is different is that Chinese
hacking goes beyond snooping for national security reasons in a few ways.

They actively engage in corporate espionage (in a massive way) to aid their
homegrown companies and directly harm US companies. As far as we know, the NSA
isn't stealing trade secrets from BMW and giving them to GM.

They directly attack civilians for hosting content they don't like, e.g., the
recent DDoS attack on github.

~~~
paganel
> As far as we know, the NSA isn't stealing trade secrets from BMW and giving
> them to GM.

After a 2-second Google search: "Snowden says NSA engages in industrial
espionage" (from here [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/26/us-security-
snowde...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/26/us-security-snowden-
germany-idUSBREA0P0DE20140126#3b7sfkh2fpd258fO.97))

~~~
learc83
Notice he said nothing about giving trade secrets to US companies. Of course
spy agencies are spying on companies from other countries, but there is a big
difference between spying and stealing trade secrets to give local companies a
competitive advantage.

------
laen
Supposedly the PLA started scaling back cyber ops after the indictments of May
2014.

>“From what we see, the majority of the intrusions today are coming from sets
that we believe are MSS or MSS contractors versus the PLA,"...“That’s a shift
that’s been happening roughly in the last year and a half.”

Last year and a half eh, so the _shift_ was coincidental with the indictments.
I hope these U.S. officials aren't enamored with the potency of the
indictments. It appears the PLA's scaling back is a political play to get more
at the bargaining table.

Let's not start patting ourselves on the back too quickly.

