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China's President Hu Talks IT Warfare

Posted by Zonk on Fri Nov 02, 2007 04:57 PM
from the reading-dilbert-in-the-trenches dept.
The Military Government Politics IT
narramissic writes "In his keynote speech at the Communist Party Congress in October China's president Hu Jintao was specific in his references to one area of IT: defense. 'We must build strong armed forces through science and technology. To attain the strategic objective of building computerized armed forces and winning IT-based warfare, we will accelerate composite development of mechanization and computerization, carry out military training under IT-based conditions, modernize every aspect of logistics, intensify our efforts to train a new type of high-caliber military personnel in large numbers and change the mode of generating combat capabilities.'"
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Submission: China's President Hu Talks IT Warfare by narramissic (997261)
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  • Bullshit Bingo Winner! (Score:5, Funny)

    by trolltalk.com (1108067) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:01PM (#21218237) Homepage Journal

    >"We must build strong armed forces through science and technology. To attain the strategic objective of building computerized armed forces and winning IT-based warfare, we will accelerate composite development of mechanization and computerization, carry out military training under IT-based conditions, modernize every aspect of logistics, intensify our efforts to train a new type of high-caliber military personnel in large numbers and change the mode of generating combat capabilities."

    Filled my bullshit bingo card across, down, and both diagonals! Sure he doesn't work in marketing?

    • Well, his speech sounds a lot like CIA's:

      http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3649/is_199607/ai_n8752654 [findarticles.com]

      CIA director calls for cyber-war defense center

      The director of the CIA last week said the U.S. will set up a defense center to combat the growing threat of terrorists and criminals out to bring down vital network systems.

      CIA Director John Deutch said the threat of organized information warfare is likely to grow, raising the prospect of an "electronic Pearl Harbor."

      • An electronic Pearl Harbor? I know all asians look alike to caucasians, but it's China we should worry about, not Japan. It's more of an electic Boxer Rebellion.

        Sorry, couldn't resist. It's nice to know the CIA is apparently paying attention. A random question to anyone: how much traffic enters/leaves the US a second? Just how big of a MOAF (mother of all firewalls) would the government need to prevent increased latency(not that this would be a government concern of course)?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          ...more likely the other way around. The USA is the world's aggressor now, you know.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by ArcherB (796902) *
            ...more likely the other way around. The USA is the world's aggressor now, you know.

            It's a shame that we are not more so. Maybe we could have stopped things like the Darfur or Rwanda massacres. Then again, even though we do have the world's largest military, we can't do it all without a little help. Hell, if we even got a little moral support it would go a long way. Instead, we get people from pussy nations like yours that want to debate everything at the UN while men, women and children are dying... qu

              • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                by ArcherB (796902) *
                You can't solve everything with brute force either .

                That's why we waited for 12 years and through 19 UN resolutions before going into Iraq. We tried every option conceivable before using overwhelming force, including the use of limited force. Nothing worked. I guess it didn't matter as some people think that force is absolutely never the answer. These are the people that would rather learn German see the rest of Jews sent to the showers than to actually go to war.

                Same thing is happening in Iran today.


                Th

                  • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                    by ArcherB (796902) *
                    Because little ol' Iran is such a huge threat to the colossal USA...

                    I guess that is the difference between my country and wherever you are from. We will fight to defend those that can not defend themselves. We don't just think of ourselves. We believe that human rights come from God, not man and it is our duty to see that the people of the world are given the chance. We are not content to stand idly by as millions of innocents get slaughtered (Rwanda, Darfur) where as the UN, the organization mean to st

    • Re:Bullshit Bingo Winner! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CodeBuster (516420) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:29PM (#21218541)
      Sure he doesn't work in marketing?

      Well, in a manner of speaking, he does work in marketing. He is pitching his sales strategy to his customers who buy into it by supporting him, continuing to approve of his policies, and ultimately keep him in power. I am not certain, but if I had to guess I would say that the unique and opaque culture of the Chinese government bureaucracy, complete with back room deals, shifting political allegiances, corruption, the gulag, and all the intrigues that accompany any non-representative government, whether it be an oriental despotism like the Byzantine Empire [wikipedia.org] or a modern scientific socialism [wikipedia.org] like China (at least officially), is a major contributing factor in the copious amount of nauseating and pompous bullshit bingo which emerges in these quinquennal (occuring once every five years) meetings of the Congress of People's Deputies (I think that is what they call themselves). Compared with these guys, the US presidential candidates are downright honest, frank, and forthcoming.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by khallow (566160)

              No, I don't think I'll give you a break here. First, we can eliminate the largest category of disaffected, people shall be second-guessing the 2000 elections forever, but they won't be able to come up with a coherent explanation for why, after the fact, they could have done better. The margin of error in such a close contest is greater than the vote difference. And no matter how you spin it, there is no legal way to determine the victor in such situations. The second largest group, latino and black soldiers

    • Re:Bullshit Bingo Winner! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2007, @06:19PM (#21219137)
      Presumably he was speaking in Chinese and this is just a translation with added bullshit to emphasize the China = Evil viewpoint.
    • The ChiComs have arrived.
      He even sounds like our public affairs flacks, and let's face it, human wave attacks are SO 1950s!

      • Re:Bullshit Bingo Winner! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by trolltalk.com (1108067) on Friday November 02 2007, @07:34PM (#21219925) Homepage Journal

        How would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot, with a satanist saying you should be "perfected", that Christians don't really know god, etc.

        Anyone who really loved someone wouldn't do what Coulter does. She doesn't love jews. Love includes respect. And that includes respect for their choices - including religion - not going around saying "we're the Fed-Ex to God", and that jews, or any other people, need to be "perfected". That implies 2 things - that Coulter believes she's "perfected" and others aren't.

        If Coulter really wants to get people to convert, she should walk the walk, not talk the talk. And the first step would be to foreswear going around throwing gasoline everywhere and trying to strike sparks. Her brand of christianity is the "resounding like a hollow gong" mentioned in 1 Cor 13.

        Thank God I'm an Atheist.

  • Hu? (Score:4, Funny)

    by gotonull (1054170) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:05PM (#21218273)
    Hu talks about IT warfare?

  • And the U.S. is collaborating ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by foobsr (693224) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:12PM (#21218367) Homepage Journal
    ... , for instance at this place [arizona.edu], where we have, as only one example of a high ranking AI-researcher, Dr. Feiyue Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences (also advisor to the government), who does interesting research like, e.g. "Pedestrian Detection from a Moving Vehicle" (translate for yourself). I had this person on the radar [blogspot.com] earlier.

    CC.
    • for instance at this place, where we have, as only one example of a high ranking AI-researcher, Dr. Feiyue Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences (also advisor to the government), who does interesting research like, e.g. "Pedestrian Detection from a Moving Vehicle" (translate for yourself). I had this person on the radar earlier.

      Could you be a little bit more explicit about what you're implying? I'm not sure I see why you're so paranoid about a Chinese person doing computer vision research. Of course, I might b

  • No one can win in "IT warfare" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by webmaster404 (1148909) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:13PM (#21218369)
    No one can win in "IT warfare" because no matter what you do, as long as someone has the desire to, they will hack and crack it. Think about the iPod's checksum, it was defeated within a few days. HD-DVD and DVDs are cracked and some are reporting Blu-Ray cracked too. And for "skills" in IT, think about how "high tech" America is, yet the average consumer doesn't know any more then how to use an iPod, get around in Word and surf the net, and whenever MS or Apple comes out with a new version we spend millions for "retraining" the fact is, unless you know how to program, and how things work (technically not just that an iPod plays music from a hard drive to your speakers) you can never succeed, the fact is that in IT and the internet, anyone can succeed not just one class/country and right now the "geeks" are dominating not the FBI, CIA or any other government, its the geeks that will win just give it some time. Already there is a "class devision" in technology, some people know how to install RAM, install Linux, use Linux, fix a broken hard drive, how USB and other peripherals work and some spend over $500 on a proprietary OS that doesn't even hardly fit their needs and tech support to fix what they break. Nothing other then the open-sourcing of all code will change that. Just wait 5 years and the average /. reader will have the skills needed to thrive and those who have spent thousands going to "business school" will be working in a way for the "geeks"
    • I note that your example depends on access to the device.

      I have a red computer name "Herring".
      I invite you to hack it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LingNoi (1066278)

      Just wait 5 years and the average /. reader will have the skills needed to thrive and those who have spent thousands going to "business school" will be working in a way for the "geeks"
      You really don't know how the world works. The dumber you are the higher up the food chain you go. Why do you think there are so many incompetent managers about?! Tech jobs always means you're at the bottom of the barrel.

    • that's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

      by circletimessquare (444983) <circletimessquareNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday November 02 2007, @05:44PM (#21218751) Homepage
      that's like saying that if you don't know how to disassemble an internel combustion engine, you'll never be able to drive anywhere

      the computer is just a tool. knowing how the tool works means you'll make a good salary, not run the world. you're an engineer, not a leader

      it is in fact a mark of your naivete that you think mastery of a computer means mastery of the real world
    • Indeed. To borrow the words of a famous voice synthesizer, "The only winning move is not to play."
  • No more Big Red Button hooked up to a Big Red Nuke?

  • Thats cool by me (Score:3, Funny)

    by QuantumRiff (120817) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:18PM (#21218447)
    They have 4 times our population, but we have more IP Addresses then they do!!! Take that!

    On a more serious note, how hard would it be (if they pissed off enough country's) to null route all their IPs at the core peering points?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ILuvRamen (1026668)
      well that's just dumb. In war you've gotta have some balls! Enough citizens and businesses in China have a valid copy of a windows OS that if Microsoft released a China only windows update that wipes their hard drives, so many businesses would fail, it would kill their economy like throwing a grenade at a groundhog. I mean just think, if 1% of all business computers in China had a legitimate copy of windows and downloaded and installed the update, that could be like the utilities going down or major nati

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pembo13 (770295)

      On a more serious note, how hard would it be (if they pissed off enough country's) to null route all their IPs at the core peering points?
      As easy as it would be to do so to the United State of America

  • Question (Score:3, Funny)

    by kaoshin (110328) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:19PM (#21218459)
    Sorry, I've been backed up in work and out of touch with the news. Who did China declare war on? I'm so confused.

    • The Republic of China [wikipedia.org] is under a persistent threat of a (Mainland) Chinese attack. United States has long ago promised to defend them, so we have to listen carefully (and take notes!), when the current rival — and an unlikely-but-possible future enemy — talks about any kind of war.

      Sooner or later China may also decide to begin solving its (over)population issues by expanding into Siberia, whose population density was always far smaller (orders of magnitude smaller) than China's and is now shri [voanews.com]

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mi (197448)

          If China do decide to buy land off of Russia, is it not a good thing by your argument?

          Absolutely. But Russia may refuse to sell — out of nationalist pride or something else. And then things may get ugly.

          Major western powers are the main threat here, not China.

          A "main threat" where? Japan (itself the number one threat in the East only 70 years ago, BTW) has nothing to fear from the West. Neither does India. Certainly not Taiwan nor South Korea. North Korea or Myanmar — maybe, although the neo

  • In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nebaz (453974) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:20PM (#21218469)
    President Hu also challenged the Chinese electrical system to develop faster forms of power recovery, so when power goes out, pertaining to laptops, Hu's will be on first.

  • Well... (Score:4, Funny)

    by kmac06 (608921) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:27PM (#21218523)
    So if this is anything like our State of the Union address, none of this will ever happen?

  • military training under IT-based conditions (Score:5, Funny)

    by poopie (35416) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:30PM (#21218565) Journal
    Translation: We're going to play a lot of Halo 3

  • Somebody set up us the bomb. (Score:4, Funny)

    by my_left_nut (1161359) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:31PM (#21218575)
    All your base are belong to us!

    With great justice!

    Carry out military training under IT-based conditions!

  • His Plans Are Clear (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hoi Polloi (522990) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:34PM (#21218599) Journal
    He means for China to cut off our supply of farmed WoW gold. Gentlemen, we must not allow a WoW gold gap!

  • NCW (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mattjb0010 (724744) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:36PM (#21218615) Homepage
    Anyone else read this as talking about NCW (net centric warfare) and not cyberattacks?

  • You know what this means? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DigiShaman (671371) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:40PM (#21218669) Homepage
    It means the US will be putting tighter restrictions on the export of software and networking equipment. Count on it!

    A good thing actually. I don't want any US corporation aiding the CCP's censorship goals/objectives.

  • Step Followers, Not Engineers. Begin Human Wave! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jujuchef (452269) on Friday November 02 2007, @05:47PM (#21218787)
    Don't tase me bro, but this is because they have no encouraged cability to think for themselves. China wants to use the tried and true method of 'if you throw enough resources at something, we'll get a result'. This is counter to the Communist rule in which they exist. To a certain degree, it is very similar to the notion that it is OK for an American to not be patriotic, or even speak out against his government in modern-day without being labled negatively or face real-life harm because of exercising ones right (ie, believe in God or you can't be a good American).

    There have been a number of projects that I have worked on in IT with Chinese consultants based in China. The shocking (and most often shocking) revelation I have had is the persistance for step by step instructions to almost everything. I sometimes find myself wondering what it is exactly (other than a recently over-changed government policy that now embraces MS) they actually utilize, but more importantly contribute, the usefulness of OSS because of the amount of outside thinking and experimentation that is needed to become comfortable using such systems.

    Anecdote is this: China constultants assists in co-coding a massive project that involves originally western-sourced code. Upon being provided an API and an approach-based guidline to expand on the source, they insist on step by step instructions and 'scripts' for things as simple as using a copy command. Now being well-versed in J2EE projects, I would expect more than 'step 72 gives this error, everything is broke'. Eventually when you find out that step 72 broke because the pre-requisites and steps 13-20 were ommitted, you can't help but wonder how to teach the taught, 'thought' and encouraging different approaches to a solution.

  • Obligatory George Bush joke (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2007, @05:48PM (#21218799)
    Bush: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
    Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
    Bush: Great. Lay it on me.
    Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
    Bush: That's what I want to know.
    Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
    Bush: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
    Condi: Yes.
    Bush: I mean the fellow's name.
    Condi: Hu.
    Bush: The guy in China.
    Condi: Hu.
    Bush: The new leader of China.
    Condi: Hu.
    Bush: The Chinaman!
    Condi: Hu is leading China.
    Bush: Now whaddya' asking me for?
    Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
    Bush: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
    Condi: That's the man's name.
    Bush: That's who's name?
    Condi: Yes.
    Bush: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?
    Condi: Yes, sir.
    Bush: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle
                    East.
    Condi: That's correct.
    Bush: Then who is in China?
    Condi: Yes, sir.
    Bush: Yassir is in China?
    Condi: No, sir.
    Bush: Then who is?
    Condi: Yes, sir.
    Bush: Yassir?
    Condi: No, sir.
    Bush: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China.
                    Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
    Condi: Kofi?
    Bush: No, thanks.
    Condi: You want Kofi?
    Bush: No.
    Condi: You don't want Kofi.
    Bush: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.
                    And then get me the U.N.
    Condi: Yes, sir.
    Bush: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
    Condi: Kofi?
    Bush: Milk! Will you please make the call?
    Condi: And call who?
    Bush: Who is the guy at the U.N?
    Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
    Bush: Will you stay out of China?!
    Condi: Yes, sir.
    Bush: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
    Condi: Kofi.
    Bush: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.
    (Condi picks up the phone.)
    Condi: Rice, here.
    Bush: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should
                    send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you get
                    Chinese food in the Middle East?
  • Terminator, Robocop, the Matrix and a decades worth of Gundam just made it through the censors last weekend and now everyones shitting themselves.

  • Mistranslation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fieryphoenix (1161565) on Friday November 02 2007, @08:04PM (#21220143)
    Now, I do not speak any form of Chinese, but I have read a damn lot of Engrish. Especially given the surrounding statements, this sounds like he's talking about computerizing the army. Just because the word IT is mentioned doesn't make it cyberwarfare. My impression of his remarks as quoted in the article is that he wants Chinese soldiers to have similar capabilties as US forces are. There's just too little information, the terms are NOT the standard english phrases that would be used to describe it, so I suspect a bad translation and assumptions went into making this article. I would want a tranlator WELL fluent in both Enlgish and Chinese to affirm that the Chinese words here translated as "IT based warfare" meant "cyberwarefare" and not "computer assisted soldiering".

  • F**king Fascists (Score:3, Funny)

    by unity100 (970058) on Friday November 02 2007, @10:06PM (#21220895) Homepage Journal
    For the first time in the civilization's history, there is an invention that brings ENTIRE world together, yet some crowd can only think of "warfare" "strong armed force" "defense" (defense my butt, anything for defense is always for offense) and shit.

    If you let derelict, obsolete old coots run a nation, this happens. Repression of the elder citizens. I bet many of them still live in 1950s mindset.
    • You seem to think that the battlefield will exist in the same way physical ones do.

      The IT battlefield is quite different... it involves infecting Windows PCs with worms a la Storm, creating back doors into databases so that you know what the enemy is doing before they do, etc. It doesn't involve (primarily) using Chinese IP addresses to deface the white house web page.

      The Chinese know how to manipulate information to alter reality. They are much better at this than countries like the US (although I think the US government is improving in this area). THIS is the IT battlefield; manipulation of information and perception.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Cyno (85911)
        Manipulating information and perception will only increase distrust and dissent when you have an opposition like the FOSS or Truth movement analyzing your every move.

        If SCO, Microsoft, and the US Government can't do it by now, what makes you think they could tomorrow? They have all the money in the world, yet they can't convince me with their propoganda. Why is that? Because they lack credibility. At this rate they will never have it.

        ae911truth.org

        I don't know about you, but I believe the law of conserv [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Smauler (915644)

      Everyone knows China as the world's foremost assholes already

      No, everyone does not know this. The US and the UK invaded Iraq at the cost of hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. I am not defending China here, but from where I am sitting, they're not invading and killing as much.

      I want to think and do and say as I fuckin feel like, within the limits of law

      Don't you realise they're just different laws? Many people in Europe think it's repressive to require women to cover their breasts on t

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