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China 'hacked into Pentagon computers'

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by hooroo, Sep 4, 2007.

  1. newplayer

    newplayer Member

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    That's just a rubbish argument, remotely logging into a network is totally different from cracking an encrypted file on your harddrive/RAM. For starters, you cannot just load whatever you want into RAM and keep cracking at it. One elementary security procedure is to double the delay between each unsuccessful log-in attempts, so your CPU is gonna have to wait for a year after its 25th unsuccessful attempt -- assuming that the remote machine didn't set the number of allowable unsuccessful attempts from the same IP to like 3. It doesn't matter what super duper computer you have, if you cannot physically get to the box of the machine and its hard drives, it's practically impossible for you to break into it with whatever computer you have.

    Rubbish, I'd like to see you break into a properly protected linux box that's only running an SSH server. The best you'd be able to do is use up a bit of its CPU by getting thousands of machines with different IPs to try to log in to it, and you have practically 0 chance of doing any more damage. You may be able to cause a denial-of-service problem with thousands of machines if the machine is running an HTTP server, but even though, you'd just overwhelm the CPU of the server and you still cannot get any information that you are not supposed to get.
     
  2. newplayer

    newplayer Member

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    Excuse me, how exactly do you use a super computer to remotely hack into a machine?

    Oh my god! Do you even know how email works? To put it simply, it's just a program that reads stuff from the network cards and then writes stuff to your harddrive. On linux/unix boxes, the standard procedure is to give the email program its own user ID, and only allow this user to write stuff to your harddrive. What this means is that your email program, if setup correctly, can only perform writing to your home directory and it cannot read or execute anything.

    Networking can take ages especially if it's done over the internet. Send yourself an email from gmail to your company/school account and see how long it takes for it arrive.

    The only 2 ways to launch an attack using your email are (1) exploiting a vulnerability of the software, e.g. sending an extremely long string and overwrites some data structure and the code of the email program in RAM, (2) using a trojan horse softare, e.g. the I-love-you bug. Unless the US departments are using an extremely old version of email server/client, (1) is practically impossible, and if you setup your email software with the right permissions, it would only be able to harm your own account and nobody else's. To prevent (2), all you need is some elementary training that makes sure the staff never opens any suspicious email.

    Wait a minute, how exactly does this trace work? The only credible trace on networking is the IP address of the machines. It's impossible to remotely connect to any computer without giving the remote host your IP address. So, unless PLA has publicized their IP subnet addresses all over the internet, and they were stupid enough to carry out a large scale hacking attack from their own well publicized networks, I don't see how you can link the attacks to the PLA.

    Are you kidding me? How are they gonna attack me? My linux box is only running an ssh server and I can change its process priorities to as low as possible, which means that the CPU would bump the ssh server off the processing queue whenever some other process wants to run. I've been getting at least 100 unsuccessful ssh login attempts per day for the last 5 years, and nobody has ever even got a single valid username.
     
  3. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Chinese military attacks, whether direct or by proxy, on American and German computers have been duly noted, anybody who believes otherwise is a fool or a hack, of a different sort. I would be shocked if they did not also attempt to hack the computers of all NATO members, as well as Japanese, Aussies, and others......with the exception of New Zealand, because they suck too much.
     
  4. pppbigppp

    pppbigppp Member

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    Does anyone know if the PLA has an intelligence branch, like CIA/mossad/MI6 that specializes in paramilitary activity?
     
  5. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    The CIA and MI6 don't specialize in paramilitary activity. Thats just part of their thing. The main security service comparable to the CIA in China is:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_State_Security
     
  6. Panda

    Panda Member

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    I believe all countries try to hack the hell out of each other, but it doesn't mean they can easily succeed. Was the writer inspired by "Live Fee Die Hard"?
     
  7. NewYorker

    NewYorker Ghost of Clutch Fans

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    We don't hack into the U.K. and vice versa. Usually only unfreindly nations hack into other unfriendly nations.

    Basically, China is establishing itself as an enemy of the u.s. by these acts. It's showing that it's more interested in stealing military secrets than making good relations.
     
  8. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    Darn it, you should have used a "spoiler" tag!!! :mad:






    ;)



    Impeach Dildo and His Battery.
     
  9. pppbigppp

    pppbigppp Member

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    hehe, that school of thought is pretty naive. If something like this sets you off, you obviously isn't ready to stomach the shenanigan that goes behind intelligence gathering. There is no friends and foes, only cats and mouses. It's not a question of should or shouldn't, but rather can or cannot. With the backing of powerful lobbyist group, Israel got away with a lot of stuff.

    Back to the article. The part on German network trojan horse is just too funny. Some people simply cannot resist the temptation to launch XXX nude teen, while logged onto the government network. :D

    The article is too light on technical detail to have any kind of legitimacy. This is how real hacking ought to be/was done, successfully. Isn't likely to originate from an unfriendly nation either. Other juicy stuff that is not publicly blown will never show up on any mainstream source.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_telephone_tapping_case_2004-2005
     
  10. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    The EU has accused Echelon of extracting their companies secrets and giving it to our companies. We do spy on each other and it's like a game to everyone involved.

    It's all related because some of the more successful hacking attempts involve some assistance from social engineering or spies.
     
  11. DaRock1

    DaRock1 Member

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    You are extremely naive.
     
  12. jo mama

    jo mama Member

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    wrong and wrong. we hack into everybody. and would you say that israel is an "unfreindly nation" b/c they are the biggest hacker into the u.s. government.

    and when we do the same are we establishing ourselves as an enemy of china?
     
  13. NewYorker

    NewYorker Ghost of Clutch Fans

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    You will not find the CIA spying on the U.K. because if they get caught the reprecussions would be poor. Why spy on our allies when we can just buy the technology?

    Corporations do spy but that's a whole different ball game. The fact that the Chinese are hacking into our military computers though is an act of war and should be punished with sanctions.

    The CHinese have been abusing America's goodwill on trade, has threatneded to send our economy into the toilet, and has been sending us dangerous products to our consumers. Now this? It's too much. We need to show some spine and stand up to them or they will continue to poop all over America.
     
  14. pppbigppp

    pppbigppp Member

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    You still completely ignorant to the world of espionage. If UK get caught they become the laughing stock of the day in the intelligence community. And stop equating spying to only stealing technology, which has nothing to do with the original article anyways. Espionage is common, dirty, and in most cases, necessary, for any nation that worths a damn. Drill that into your head.

    If US wants to establish bilateral treaty on cyber activity limitation, the Chinese government will sign up right away. Until then I'm still not sure what your beef is.

    PS: an act of war is punish by full scale warfare, not sanction. Watch the non-sense you spout.
     
  15. lost_ball

    lost_ball Member

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  16. NewYorker

    NewYorker Ghost of Clutch Fans

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    China has long been a violater of U.S. Patents and doesn't respect our gov't. Hacking into military computers of the U.S. is a serious thing - as you said, it's not spying, it's actually breaking and entering. Also, these hackers may also be able to disrupt the military or other services, so it's quite more dangerous and serious than espionage. Of course, you will say that China never has ever done anything wrong :rolleyes:

    With China's poor record on a multitude of issues...I really think the U.S. has taken enough and we need to draw a line and take a firmer stance with China.
     
    #36 NewYorker, Sep 6, 2007
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2007
  17. tinman

    tinman 999999999
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    Damn the YOFers,
    they claim to be Rocket fans, just to hack our systems!
     
  18. jo mama

    jo mama Member

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    again, we spy on/hack into everybody, including the uk. they do it to us too. if you think otherwise you are naive.
     
  19. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    And actually we have mutual agreements where they spy on us and tell us about it to avoid restrictions on the CIA & vice versa.

    See Echelon
     
  20. Panda

    Panda Member

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    The latest U.S. health safety distraction ploy: Blame China!

    http://www.newstarget.com/021963.html


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    U.S. health and safety officials have found yet another brilliant way to distract the public from realizing just how dangerous U.S.-made food and drug products are: Blame China! Lately, we've seen China blamed for everything from toxic toothpaste, deadly dog food, contaminated ginger and now lead-based paints in Mattel toys.

    Of course, all the accusations are true. China's food and herbal products are so routinely contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals that high-quality supplement formulators in the United States refuse to buy products from China anymore. But the really clever part in all this is that blaming China prevents people from paying attention to the dangerous ingredients openly allowed in the U.S. food supply by the FDA.

    Specifically, the FDA currently allows known cancer-causing chemicals to be widely used in both foods and drugs. Sodium nitrite, for example, has been irrefutably shown to cause pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, leukemia and brain tumors in children, and yet the FDA looks the other way while processed meat manufacturers continue to add sodium nitrite to meat products sold throughout the country.

    What about all the children eating hot dogs and getting brain tumors from the highly carcinogenic nitrosamines created by eating such foods? No problem: Blame China! How about all the infants suffering birth defects from the nutritional deficiencies caused by their mothers chowing down refined grains, hydrogenated oils and nutrient-depleted procesed foods? No problem: Blame China! If you're a U.S. regulatory body and you're looking for an easy way out of owning up to actual responsibility, just play the China card. Invoke the blame game!


    Advocating the chemical intoxication of the American people
    The FDA also allows all kinds of toxic chemicals to be used in over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Everything from cough syrups to pain pills seems to be openly contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals ranging from synthetic sweeteners to petrochemical-derived coloring chemicals. You can hardly pick up an over-the-counter medication at a convenience store without seeing some scary chemical on the ingredients list.

    The USDA, meanwhile, openly allows U.S. farmers to inject cattle with hormones and antibiotics that are banned in most other countries, and the agency even has an open policy of allowing U.S. cattle to be fed chicken poop, roadkill, euthanized pets, and until recently, brain and spinal fluids from other dead, diseased cows. So what happens when consumers eating this stuff suffer bizarre neurological disorders like the human form of mad cow disease? Blame China!

    In fact, the U.S. food supply is a toxic brew of synthetic chemicals and artificially modified molecules that are extremely harmful to human health. The list of such ingredients that should be banned from the food supply -- but won't be -- include MSG, processed sodium, refined white sugar, refined white flour, aspartame, saccharin, hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, chemical preservatives, color fixer chemicals and homogenized dairy fats (which cause heart disease). By screaming "China!" to the U.S. press and pointing the finger at dangerous Chinese-made products, the Food and Drug Administration diverts scrutiny from its own lousy lack of meaningful food safety enforcement with U.S. manufacturers.


    The silent treatment
    U.S. authorities, of course, remain silent about the deadly chemicals openly allowed in the U.S. food supply. Except for a few radical nutritionists like myself and other independent writers, practially nobody is warning the U.S. public over the dangers of sodium nitrite, MSG, aspartame and fluoride. It took years just to get consensus on the fact that trans fatty acids are dangerous to health, and even then, the FDA still refuses to ban them from the food supply, kow-towing to the interests of giant food corporations who insist they need hydrogenated oils to ensure longer shelf life for their food products (which guantees more profits).

    There is currently no effort underway to ban known cancer-causing chemicals from the food supply, even when the science is very clear about the damage such chemicals are causing to the U.S. public. Sodium nitrite is a clear example of a toxic ingredient that has no real use other than turning dead meats a pretty pink color, and yet neither the FDA nor USDA have taken any interest in attempting to ban this ingredient from foods.


    Why China should ban most U.S. processed foods
    Technically, China should ban all processed meat imports from the United States, given that such meats contain detectable levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the form of sodium nitrite (and MSG, usually). If the world were really concerned about food safety, they would ban virtually all common food items made in the USA: Beef, hamburgers, processed meats, sugary sweets, diet sodas, frozen dinners and much more. The USA is the largest exporter of death and disease in the entire world. We sell more disease-promoting crap than anyone, and every country that adopts the U.S. diet sees an immediate and rapid decline in the health of its population.

    You see, the "Blame China" campaign isn't really about protecting U.S. consumers from dangerous products. It's about shifting blame from the U.S. to some foreign country and making it appear that all food safety problems are somebody else's fault. At the same time, it creates the illusion that U.S. regulators are being vigilant in protecting our borders from dangerous products being shipped in from overseas. So it's a two-fer: Deflect blame, and appear stoic. Too bad it has nothing to do with reality.

    As usual, the real problems in America are found within. The most dangerous foods, drugs and pet foods are all made right here in America, using FDA-approved toxic substances that are so deadly to the public they should be considered a form of chemical warfare. Antibacterial soaps, for example, are based on a nerve-killing chemical closely related to Agent Orange. Fluoride-enriched water products use a chemical form of fluoride considered a toxic waste from the fertilizer processing industry, and the widespread use of genetically modified corn in the food supply exposes virtually the entire population to alarming levels of chemical pesticides unleashed during digestion.

    My CounterThink cartoon, the Food Terrorists, explains this in more detail.

    But that's not all: Recently, the CRN (Council for Responsible Nutrition) suggested that functional foods currently being sold in the United States might have too much nutrition and should be strictly regulated so they don't provide too much funtional nourishment to consumers. This is part of the global effort to actually reduce the nutritional impact of food and unleash widespread nutritional deficiencies that will result in trillions of dollars in new profits for pharmaceutical companies. (CODEX is also part of this same effort to neutralize the nutrition in the food supply.)

    So while the U.S. allows the chemical contamination of its foods and pushes for upper limits on meaningful nutrition, it successfully distracts the whole nation (especially the press) from the relevant issues by pointing at China and claiming China is the source of all our food safety problems.


    Sleight of hand works for governments, too
    Magicians use the same trick. Create a distraction, and while the audience is looking in that direction, you pull a fast one on the cards palmed in your other hand. Except in this case, U.S. food safety regulators aren't playing with cards; they're playing with the lives of the American people. And so far, they're losing big time: Americans are now the least healthy people in the world among industrialized nations. We suffer from more cancer, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart disease, violent behavior and sheer madness than any population in the world, and you can't blame China for all that.

    The real problem, it turns out, is found inside our own borders. The real problem is the corporations and regulators that run America today and who unilaterally refuse to do anything meaningful to protect the lives and health of U.S. consumers. U.S. food companies put poisons right into the foods; cities drip poisonous fluoride into the water supply; pharmacies hand out poisonous medications to 40% of the population; chemical companies sell poisonous detergents, pesticides, fabric softeners, soaps and personal care products to virtually every household in America. And don't even get me started about cosmetics companies, pet food companies and infant formula manufacturers.

    Blame China? Give me a break. How about blaming the corrupt, criminally-minded FDA bureaucrats who have utterly surrendered their duties to profiteering corporations fixated solely on exploiting American consumers for maximum profits?

    All this doesn't mean China's foods are any safer. They're not. But U.S. foods, drugs and personal care products are just as toxic. Pick up a piece of beef jerky at any grocery store, and you'll find a combination of multiple cancer causing ingredients in a single product: Sodium nitrite, monosodium glutamate and even artificial colors (not to mention the toxic animal fat sources used to make beef jerky). Where is the FDA when it comes to protecting Americans from American companies?

    The unstated double standard is that American foods are safe merely by the fact that they are made in America. But the only real difference between U.S. foods and Chinese foods is that the China-made ingredients will kill you faster... too fast for you to be profitable treated by pharmaceuticals.

    American-made foods will kill you slowly, developing symptoms over a period of decades and stringing you along just enough to make sure you become a lifelong customer of Big Pharma. There's nothing like high-fructose corn syrup to keep a diabetic in constant need of medication. This fact, combined with the fact that the American Diabetes Association continues to recommend things like ice cream to diabetics (as long as they regulate their blood sugar with medication!), shows you just how important it is for corporate America to keep the American population just sick enough to need medication, but not so sick that they all keel over and die.

    The real problem with China's toxic ingredients, you see, is that they kill Americans too quickly, thereby depriving Big Pharma of a lifetime of revenue treating some sick person's symptoms with extremely profitable patented medications. This is not appreciated in America because it competes with our own home-grown poisoning method that prefers to poison consumer more slowly, bilking them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in monopoly priced medications and hopefully killing them off right before Medicare or social security might kick in.

    So the next time some ignorant bureaucrat (or friend, or family member) mentions to you how dangerous China's food products are, just ask them these simple questions:

    1) Why does the FDA allow leukemia-causing chemicals to be added to hot dogs that are consumed by children? (Sodium nitrite)

    2) Why does the FDA allows nerve-damaging monosodium glutamate chemicals (and derivatives) to be used in baby food?

    3) Why does the Girl Scouts continue to make its famous cookies with partially-hydrogenated oils known to contribute to essential fatty acid deficiencies in infants?

    4) Why is aspartame still allowed in the food supply at all? (An excotitoxin)

    5) Why is mercury still tolerated in American dental work (and, in fact, still pushed by the American Dental Association!) when mercury ingestion is so dangerous to human health?

    6) Why do vaccination policies still allow the mass injection of babies with methyl mercury, which has been clearly linked to autism and autoimmune disorders?

    7) Why are extremely toxic, cancer-causing chemicals openly allowed to be used in skin care products, perfumes and personal care formulas sold throughout America?

    8) Why are popular laundry products still allowed to be sold in the U.S. when they contain numerous cancer-causing chemicals that get embedded in the fibers of clothing and are easily absorbed through the skin?

    9) Why do U.S. health authorities not merely tolerate, but actually encourage the mass drugging of schoolchildren with amphetamine drugs? (Ritalin, Adderall, etc.)

    The answer, of course, is: Blame China! All our health problems are obviously China's fault, and anyone who suggests the U.S. is to blame for its own diseased population is obviously unpatriotic.
     

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