
A Chinese Hacker's Identity Unmasked - kevbin
http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked
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mjmahone17
I honestly don't know that the Chinese government is in the wrong here. If we
look, historically, every developing country had to steal intellectual
"property" in order to compete against the bigger players. Britain did it when
they stole Dutch loom technology (and created massive tariffs in order to keep
British wool for British industry), the US did it when they coaxed Samuel
Slater to illegally bring British mill designs, and South Korea did it as
well. While I understand the US's desire to protect their companies'
interests, it seems really disingenuous to label a country an enemy for
stealing IP.

The article quotes Stewart as saying: _If they did it fair and square, more
power to them. But to cheat at it is wrong._

This seems really problematic to me: it's not like all US companies do it
"fair and square," and as a sovereign country, it seems like China has every
right to summarily ignore IP, or to establish morals that don't care about
protecting foreign IP.

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hexagonc
I don't think we would want to use the disreputable behavior of nations in the
past as a model for what is acceptable today. That's why treaties and
agreements are made so that we learn from our mistakes. Not playing by the
rules that you have agreed to and expect others to adhere to _is_ cheating --
I have no problem with people calling China out on it. It's not like China is
unfairly singled out and there isn't plenty of criticism of the US and US
companies for bad behavior. Regardless of sovereignty, the Chinese don't have
a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to
respect theirs.

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dublinben
IP is just a made up way for incumbent producers to squash competition. The
Chinese have just as much right to ignore it as every other developing country
in history did. Imposing developed standards on developing countries is just
pulling the ladder up after ourselves.

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hexagonc
I'm not making a moral argument about IP and whether it is good or not. I'm
saying that if you've entered into agreements with other nations on the
premise that you do something (in this case, protect and not steal IP) then
you should honor those agreements. Whether there is some Machiavelian reason
to say you're doing one thing while secretly doing something else is a
different question. I also don't think that Google should use espionage to
steal secrets from Microsoft and vice versa, even if there is something to be
gained.

One should also note that China is not some innocent bystander in this since
Chinese companies have sought and obtained patents to stifle competition as
well. I also think the distinction made between "developed" and "developing"
countries is not useful in this case. China has the second largest economy in
the world and is very modern by many standards. They have gained great wealth
from the "developed" countries least of all because the developed countries
are their largest market for trade. China has a net trade surplus of hundreds
of billions of dollars. They are not an underdog in this.

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jnp
This article isn't about the individual unmasking of a hacker, but more about
the humanistic element of unintentionally leaving clues about your identity
while masquerading online.

I'm pointing this out because you're in for a highly anti-climactic read.

~~~
bhauer
Yet, fairly interesting nonetheless.

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qschneier
The university this guy works for (The PLA Information Engineering University)
has a military background. And in China this means the teachers and many of
the students are literally military personnel.

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druiid
Well, it just goes to show what most people know already: That there is a vast
campaign by the Chinese government to carry out hacks on foreign (and internal
sometimes I bet) targets.

Basically, the thing I took away from the article is that it's so wide at this
point that no matter the hacker there that you cast your net toward, it
probably leads back to the government. In most other countries I imagine that
most of the hackers are either third-party actors (selling what they got for
cash or simply stealing cash), or random 'kids' hacking for fun/profit.

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toyg
> _In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either
> third-party actors [...] or random 'kids'_

Let's say this hypothesis is true; we should then deduce that the Chinese
government is years (decades?) ahead of "developed" countries in terms of
information warfare. It's quite a worrying thought.

Let's say that your hypothesis is actually false: this would mean that there
is an ongoing similarly-sized info-warfare effort waged by the US government
(at least), but we rarely hear about it. Again quite a worrying thought.

~~~
kevin_rubyhouse
My thoughts exactly. The US probably has a just as big or more sophisticated
organization of hackers and cyber warriors. It's fantastic and also overlooked
when talking about Chinese cyber espionage. Much talk seems so one sided, but
it's hard to objectively talk about without knowing what the American cyber
warriors have been up to. I'll take it as a sign that they're doing a good job
and not getting caught. Furthermore, I take comfort in the fact that there are
slim chances that the US and China would actually go to physical war with each
other. I want to end up working with China in the future, not necessarily
against them.

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qschneier
China will certainly won't start a war against the US. There is actually a
joke in China saying that if US wants to delay any high level government
meetings they can just ask the US schools to have a mandatory parents meeting.
And then many of those who in control of China will just fly over because they
care about their children as much as other ordinary parents if not more.

And the US will certainly won't start the war either, because you can hardly
find someone else who keep lending you money almost unconditionally.

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manten
Be honest, the U.S. did for years the same and still do it. The problem is
now: there is a other player, do it better. The exient would be more
believably if U.S., UK, France ... would stop do the same to their "enemies"
and allies

~~~
trotsky
_The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better^H^H^H^H^H^H
cheaper._

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chaz
Print version:
[http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese-
hackers-identity-unmasked)

Web version (3 pgs):
[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-
ha...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-hackers-
identity-unmasked)

OT sidenote: why are so many mobile versions so unreadable on web?

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deeqkah
How did this get posted? I Posted this last week.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221484>

~~~
greenyoda
The current post is the mobile version of the article you posted, which has a
different subdomain in the URL.

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berlinbrown
Is there anything you can do about chinese hackers. I have a small site and
many of the ssh requests come from those hackers. Can I send the list
somewhere?

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hnriot
Just like Tom Clancy's Threat Vector book. Eventually cybercrime will lead to
sino-us warfare

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chnshckr
This is racist. If it was a US hacker nobody would care. But ooooooh it's a
Chinese hacker. How evil! China soooo evil!

~~~
druiid
Wait, what? How is this racist? If the story said 'All Chinese are hackers',
that would be racist. If the story said, which it did, 'A person who lives and
works in China for the government spy academy is a hacker', that is not
racist.

Edit: Trolling troll is a troll. I 'knew' it was a troll account, but looked
just now to be sure... created 34 minutes ago :P.

~~~
rikacomet
It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to
such a way of journalism. you ask how?

Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not
working for the government, is of no use. Do I care if the hacker, who hacked
my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I
don't.

But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So
it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal
acts, like say terrorism.

Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion
and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have
been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a
terrorist is a terrorist.

But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such
unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but
not always, say when we experience something similar nearby).

In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our
mind with.

'American Fraudster''Muslim Terrorist' 'Chinese Hacker' 'Japanese Pedophile'
'Hindu Extremist'

Pick a newspaper up some odd day, and you will find a lot of them.

PS: Indeed my reasons to call such articles 'slightly racist' are perhaps
different for why the original poster said it was 'racist'.

~~~
druiid
You can make those associations in other contexts and I would fully agree with
what you said here. A person can be a terrorist regardless of race, creed,
religion, etc. The same for hackers. That said, the article is specifically
discussing a Chinese GOV linked hacker, and thus he is a 'Chinese Hacker'.
This can be said without being racist. That he's also of Chinese descent is
inconsequential. I'm certain our spook operations have people of every race
and background as long as they get the job done. If we say that someone was a
'Chinese Hacker' while they're sitting in the NSA office in Norfolk, VA... oh
yeah, that's racist.

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rikacomet
yeah, I read that. I was saying in general.

Though, one thing caught me in the article: Working on behalf of the state,
and working in the state machinery is two different things.

If you are skilled, and suppose, you can really do stuff, he did in this case,
and as it is, for a minute if we give him the benefit of doubt, that no he is
not hacking on behalf of the state, its clear, that since to the chinese govt,
itself, he is innocent. And the only thing that can be proven is his skill,
through our validation. Which makes him all the very suitable to teach at a
chinese IT related institute. so yeah, that might be a good reason to say
that, we should introspect, that how should such articles shape our perception
of the chinese.

Seriously, lets stop looking at who is building more weapons! Instead, lets
compete in who is making more jobs!

