China Taking on U.S. in Cyber Arms Race 262
Pabugs writes with a CNN story about an uncomfortable development in world politics and information technology. According to General Robert Elder, an Air Force military man setting up a 'cyber command' in Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force Base, the nation of China is already in the process of developing their own 'cyber warfare' techniques. While Elder described the bulk of China's operations as focusing on espionage, they and others around the world have more serious goals in mind. "The Defense Department said in its annual report on China's military power last month that China regarded computer network operations -- attacks, defense and exploitation -- as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. China's People's Liberation Army has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Pentagon said. China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said."
Probably get modded for Troll, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta say that it feels like that particular war's started already, and it's just that nobody actually told us.
Whether intentional or just a result of all those pirated copies of Winderz, the sheer number of bot-net/zombie attacks coming from China is staggering.
Too bad the "Great Firewall of China" is so concerned about information going IN to the country... I guess its perfectly fine if a citizen's computer sends thousands of emails for v1@gr@ or posts a zillion commercial messages into someone's threaded discussions... Just as long as it doesn't inform the user of how they've got very little freedom and a horrible standard of living, or say anything bad about the Chinese gub'ment!
Another strange twist in our China relationship (Score:5, Insightful)
What will be even more interesting is a conflict that forces us to begin manufacturing domestically again. I wonder how long it'll take to ramp up all the factories that closed up during the last 30 years or so?
Any country on Earth with enough technological resources to protect would be stupid not to start thinking about ways to defend it in a conflict. China's no exception.
Re:Another strange twist in our China relationship (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:4, Insightful)
I swear, we as Americans are so freaking self-righteous! We're the ONLY ones that can protect "our" internet. We're the ONLY ones who can monetarily profit from the expansion of China. We're the ONLY ones who should own nuclear weapons & should dictate who else can & can't!
I'd give you a +1 just for the length if your long, drawn-out diatribe wasn't riddled with subtle rifts of "I'm American, Hear me Roar!" You speak of "the spread of propaganda" & the use of "deception, disinformation & influence" by the Chinese yet we, as Americans, have been doing it for MUCH longer! As Robert Burns said in a poem:
"Ah that there would be someone to give us Eyes to see ourselves as others see us"
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:5, Insightful)
Outsourcing (Score:4, Insightful)
the chinese are old school authoritarian (Score:3, Insightful)
ideologically, the chinese are severely compromised: a communist system only in name. in actuality the chinese are more capitalist than the worst excesses of the gilded age under the robber barons. witness the latest scandals just today: disgusting child labor [news.com.au] and fake and deadly products [cnn.com]
this hypercapitalism is resulting in gated communities of ultrarich next to a countryside of desperate and teeming poor. communist my ass. china is orders of magnitude more capitalist than any society on this planet. and ruled by a "Communist Party". ha!
ideologically bankrupt, china is therefore just a power center. the only real threats to the united states and the west are ideological ones. centers of power without an ideological center cannot grow and spread, but merely sit there. in actually the reverse holds true: power centers without ideology fall under the sway of other foreign ideologies, and the chinese in that respect are ripe to fall under the influence of a new ideology. the only real model close to anything china coudl become being a western democratic one
i actually hold no illusions that democracy will cheerfully and without resistance spread across china any time soon. china is historically bureaucratic and authoritarian, and will in fact take generations to go truly democratic, if ever. but if china is on course anywhere, however slow, it is towards that kind of enlightenment. it's either that or the continuation of the longstanding chinese historical tradition of stifling authoritarianism and layers of indolent bureaucracy. which would be a shame, as it would doom china to the long term decay and inwardness and lack of progress that it faced centuries before. china in fact has a chance to democratize now, with difficulty, and with every passing decade the chance of that becomes less, and the certainty of its historical bureaucratic inertia reasserting itself becomes more
there is only one other real ideological threat in this world, something china is not in danger of coming under, and something that is a real threat to the usa: militant islamic fundamentalism. i fear and worry about a theocracy in tehran with an atomic bomb way way more than i worry about the chinese. the chinese are ideologically dead in the water. tehran meanwhile is ideologically muscular and virulent
the west did in fact defeat/ witness the collapse of communism. don't fool yourself into thinking communism is still a threat. the only real threat today to the west is militant islamic fundamentalism. the chinese meanwhile are ideologically toothless, and therefore no real threat. they just want to make money
i say to the chinese: remember and listen to the plan sun yat sen [wikipedia.org] laid out a century before for china. sun yat sen, the hero to both the nationalists and the chinese:
1. expel foreigners. done
2. centralize power. done
3. democratize. not done. yet
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is that china puts a lot of energy into it's relationship with the US, and vice versa.
What China is doing, rather, what was presented as what China is doing, has no bearing on how good or evil the US is. There was no insinuation of what you suggest whatsoever.
Rather, I hear a massive anti-us stance in _your_ post.
And as someone else mentioned, China is orders of magnitude older than the US. Learn some history and politics before you start flinging excrement around, you're showing yourself for the monkey that you are inside. Use that brain of yours and elevate yourself above. Your post was WAY more guilty of doing exactly what you have accused the gp's post of doing.
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:1, Insightful)
Basically, I think you said all you needed to say in your first line: Moral relativism makes any sort of value-judgments. Which is why I took umbrage at your use of the word freedom. Ain't no such thing, dude. Ain't no truth, ain't no beauty, ain't no right, ain't no wrong. I'm sure it looks just as wrong from the other side of the wall.
Uh... I don't have a pithy quote to end this on, so I'm just going to go with something irrelevant.
- Paul Francis
Re:Cyber attacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Day 1.) You, the lazy and over confident American, are preparing to release a new technology and enjoy all that profit that is bound to rain down for years, if not decades. You've been confirming patents, training vendors, stockpiling components and lining up sales channels. Some of that data has traveled public networks, but so far, most has circulated on your private network. And someone has been watching both.
Day 2.) All of the details of your plan have been harvested, mined and translated out of English into not one, but at least 1/2 dozen foreign languages.
Day 3.) Investments in all of the related technologies are planned and set to take place at the appropriate times to (a) profit (b) control the resources at their roots (c) position what appear to be innocuous bond traders so that when the time is right, the trigger is pulled and your firm is put in a less than favorable global market light.
Day 4.) Copies, clones and variants of your new technology are made available in vast markets where you have no reach.
Day 5.) You release your technology into the market place, like a new born calf, and wait for it to take those first precious steps all on its' own.
Day 100...) Instead of finding yourself the captain of industry all of those domestic pundits said you'd be, you have this feeling that maybe you've wasted your time, somehow.
Day 500.) The sadness you feel, seeing others profit from your firm's hard work and yankee ingenuity can hardly be put into words. Your staff put in the time - your investors put in the money - you put in years of your life. Is it possible there are others like you? Is it possible you and other domestic companies gifted the futures of concerns outside your country? How could something like this happen?
How could the good old USA be leap-frogged by developing nations dominated by dirt farmers and polluted countrysides? How?
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the United States has pockets of what could be called "socialism" in government and government programs. Does that mean the United States is socialist, or isn't Capitalist/Democratic? Of course not. To say that the existence of elements traditionally antithetical to pure "Communism" is proof that China is no longer "Communist" completely misses the larger point, and ignores the fact that China actually has significant intelligence programs dedicated to making people outside of China believe they are no longer Communist, and hint: it's not because they "really aren't any more".
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, China has pockets of Capitalism where it's convenient. Even to the extreme in some cases. They also leverage Hong Kong in this respect to great advantage. Capitalism where it benefits the goals of furtherance of the ideals of the Chinese leadership.
And as I just said in another post:
The United States has pockets of what could be called "socialism" in government and government programs. Does that mean the United States is socialist, or isn't Capitalist/Democratic? Of course not. To say that the existence of elements traditionally antithetical to pure "Communism" is proof that China is no longer "Communist" completely misses the larger point, and ignores the fact that China actually has significant intelligence programs dedicated to making people outside of China believe they are no longer Communist, and hint: it's not because they "really aren't any more".
It's interesting folks like yourself think it's all about "red-baiting", or artificially calling the Chinese "Communists" because it makes them a more palatable adversary. China has invested a significant amount of intelligence resources over the last twelve or so years into making people erroneously believe that they have abandoned Communism and are really now a quasi-Capitalist state, because they know that appears "friendly" to the West, and primarily to the United States. This is thoroughly and well-documented, and your refusal to believe that might actually be the case is interesting.
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:3, Insightful)
It's too bad that those people don't get together and create a sovereign nation where all of the citizens could enjoy those benefits.
Right, well done. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it doesn't. It does a bit here and there but it has no effective overall strategy.
I swear, we as Americans are so freaking self-righteous!
You misspelled either 'complacent' or 'doomed' but I don't know which; either would make sense.
You speak of "the spread of propaganda" & the use of "deception, disinformation & influence" by the Chinese yet we, as Americans, have been doing it for MUCH longer!
No, you haven't. You want to think you have, but you haven't. There has never been an American propaganda initiative that was 5% as effective as the Chinese PR machine for their attack on India. You wish you could do it (and then you'd have fun feeling all guilty about it) but you can't. Do you think the Iraq strategy would be in such a mess if you could do what the Chinese did in 1962?
I know of what I speak. So can you, if you read Xinhua every day. Just read it. After a few months, you will start to believe. It is a whole other history, a whole other way of looking at the world. America has nothing like it. That is why America is losing; that is why America is cast as the bad guy when they invade one lousy country for oil or whatever, and China gets to flatten the whole of central Asia, northeast Asia, and half Africa as far as I can see by this point, and yet remain Teh Cool.
You lost already. Going "oh but we are so bad for employing these elite evil technologies and techniques, teehee, oh wicked wicked us for being so kickass" does not help. Watch Fox, watch CNN, watch Al-Jazeera, even watch the BBC if you have to, and you will see different spins, different biases, different points of view. Watch Xinhua even in English and you will see a different reality. "Tibetan People Bask In Glow Of Rosy Future". When you can come up with a headline like that and have 1/3 of the world take it as truth, THEN you will be making progess.
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:3, Insightful)
The one difference, thought, is how much control the state has over the media. I know some
You talk like that in China, and you disappear.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:5, Insightful)
And this right here folks is why propaganda is a bad idea. Sure it can help you sway citizens to your cause, but in the end the populace is a bunch of people whose ideas are so clouded by the propaganda and emotions tied to it, they don't even understand the terms they are discussing.
Communism is an economic system akin to capitalism. It, in fact, co-exists with capitalism on some level in every nation on earth. Did you grow up in a family where your parents and the children shared resources and allocated them as a group? That is a very small communist cell operating within a larger capitalist economy. The US currently and always has been a nation of widespread communism. The term "communism" in the US, however, has been assigned a different meaning. Ironically, that meaning is "a totalitarian government that advocates extreme socialism." Socialism is also an economic system and one also in widespread use in every nation on earth. Public schools, roads, police, the military, welfare, prisons, etc. are all examples of socialism. Even more confusingly, the term "socialism" in the US has been co-opted to mean any socialist program that is new and not something we've always had and don't consider.
Every economy is a blend of capitalism, communism, and socialism. The economic system you have and how it favors those three components does not determine what type of government you have, but it does influence it. For example, economies that favor extreme socialism, like the former soviet union and current day China (although in decreasing amounts) have more consolidated decision making. That is consolidated power. The more of this that exists, the easier it is for a totalitarian regime to seize that power. For this reason, democracies that favor socialism to extreme extents, tend to fail and become totalitarian states (dictatorships and oligarchies).
You have it backwards. As I explained, moderate capitalism helps to prevent a totalitarian regime from taking over the government and it lends itself to the overthrow of those regimes, although not necessarily to democracy.
Your fallacy is in equating capitalism with democracy and in failing to see that all economies are a blend of the three economic systems. Favoring any one of those three models to an extreme leads to a breakdown of the system. Too much capitalism leads to wealth condensation, where all the money and hence power consolidates into only a few hands, thus also making it easy for a totalitarian regime to take over and motivates the people to aid in overthrowing those in power (since it is the only way to return to a more level economic playing field). The US is perilously close to that end of the spectrum right now, as wealth disparity continues to rise in this country.
Sadly, very few people in the US see much of anything clearly when the term "communist" is mentioned, even when applied to an extreme socialist state like China. How often do you see the press point out and explain the difference?
I agree with him. I just don't conflate democracy with capitalism as you seem to. One is a system of government and one is an economic system. Extreme capitalism can just as easily destroy a democracy as extreme communism or extreme socialism. The key is to have a moderate, balanced economy instead of being an extremist.
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:4, Insightful)
Reasons China is not communist:
- Most of the farmers own their own land, and can sell it if they want to.
- Most of the companies are privately owned, and there is PLENTY of competition (check out this month's national geographic [nationalgeographic.com] for a clear picture of the competition.)
- The government has been selling off the businesses they do own.
- If you actually go there, you may get the feeling all anyone cares about is money.
Your issue is not that China is communist, it is that China is authoritarian. You can't even get your terms straight (communism is not necessarily authoritarian at all). No one disagrees that an authoritarian China is a bad thing, however, you cannot deny that the situation is much better than it was in 1979 (read Wild Swans [amazon.com] and you will see how much better it has gotten). The hope is that with prosperity the situation will ease, and the Chinese will become more free and less authoritarian in a peaceful manner, much like what happened in Taiwan and South Korea in the 80s.
In the end, China IS going to become an international power, that cannot be stopped anymore than a center break can be stopped in chess when it is ripe. Of course they want a strong military to match the US. No one in the world likes to be pushed around by us. But what are we going to do to stop it? Bomb them? Bad idea. Stop trading with them? That will slow them down, but they have enough other trading partners that they would still grow rapidly, and it would hurt us more than them.
The only thing we can do is accept the fact that China is going to become a world power in the next few decades, and adjust our strategy appropriately. For better or for worse China is coming, and we are much better off spending our energy preparing for it than wasting our time in a hopeless effort to try to prevent it.
Re:No surprise to those watching China (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, traditional communism, would be communes, and they certainly do happen in a free society. There are quite a few just in this area.
Ahh, perhaps you're referring to the agendas of the "communist" political parties in Russia and China. Those did not advocate communism any more than the democratic party is for greater democracy. It was just a name they used. Their agenda was (ostensibly) to consolidate power so that at some point in the distant future a socialist state could be perfected. As far as I know, none of them ever tried to establish actual communist cells of increased size within their populations.
Socialism is socialism. In much of Europe, nations have some fairly reasonable levels of socialism in their economies and directed in ways that help to balance the other aspects. In the former soviet union they advocated extreme amounts of socialism, which worked quite poorly. The US actually engages in similar levels of socialism as Europe, ours is just directed very differently... mostly towards the military-industrial complex which actually exacerbates wealth consolidation as much as it ameliorates it.
When wealth and power consolidate, I don't think it makes much difference whether that begins in the private sector or in the government. Either way people with political power gain wealth and people with wealth gain political power. The distinction is lost in the shuffle. Is Cheney a wealth private sector industrialist who leveraged that into political power, or a politician who exploits his position to gain wealth for his industrial concerns? He's both of course.