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Subject: The Phony War With China
SYSOP    5/7/2015 5:10:16 AM
 
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joe6pack       5/7/2015 11:09:23 AM
Yeah... don't go starting a war you aren't sure about winning.
 
The tightly controlled Chinese "Internet".. and the "Great Wall".. give them a significant defensive advantage.
 
What's telling on this front is the Pentagon.. has sort of mentioned "kinetic responses" to cyber attacks.. (my take on that.. is we start hitting sites with cruise missiles..)... Not going to happen for China taking down some unfriendly news sites.. and if we have any really good stuff, for an offensive tool... It's not going to be wasted outside of something much more serious... once you show your hand.. it's much easier to defend against it..
 
So yeah.. the Chinese are going to get away with a lot of this.. because they can.  (my two cents anyhow..)
 
 
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Nate Dog    what, really?   5/8/2015 1:02:52 AM
I dunno,
Im fairly sure that,
a) popular support for this would be huge. Every single person who understands what any of this entails knows full well the damage those chinese assholes do, how overriding and damaging their censorship is. Its corruption on a gigantic industrial scale, and must be stomped on.
b) western companies whom built the great wall should be prosecuted out of existence, i couldn't care less if that means reprobates like Cisco go to the wall. Hang them, this was treason. The lifeblood of these companies is internet and interconnectivity. To develop a tool to help curtail that.... evil? stupid word, yet nealy appt.
c) do you really think China stands a chance should U.S. choose to destroy chinese internet interconnectivity? internet is simply a series of negotiations, a bunch of handshakes, sending you x, did you get x? sending you y, did you gets y? etc etc, the better the algorithm, the faster the internet connection, etc. 
Where do you think the hosts controlling those negotiations reside?
 
China's playing with fire, they're 100% reliant on the sleeping giant not being annoyed enough to wake....
 
 
 
 
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joe6pack       5/8/2015 9:53:04 AM
Hi Nate,
 
People would likely get behind it.. until...
 
The US from a business standpoint, is woefully prepared to put up token resistance in defending their IT operations from a state sponsored threat (my 2 cents) Even firms that "should" know better have trouble keeping the script kiddies out...  They will spend bundles on physical security.. while some teenagers in the parking lot make off with their POS.. WEP (sigh) encrypted (hah) credit card transactions..  So, from Target to Chase.. to the Health Care industry to the electrical grid.. to certain defense contractors that have been robbed blind.. (basically selling out the country while being robbed..)..   We don't seem very well prepared to fend off even the exploits that have been public knowledge for years... much less deflect state sponsored mayhem.
 
Now could the U.S go on the offensive.. I'm pretty sure we could.. If it really came down to it.  But the ability to resist... I'm highly dubious of.
 
My general points of concern:
1) The best security people in the U.S. work for a limited set of companies in the private sector.  The best security in China.. by default.. work for the Chinese government.
 
2) The U.S military. has had a maxim of train like you fight...  Well it seems the Chinese are likely getting the better training.. as their government isn't tossing them in jail for violating all sorts of laws..
 
3) The Chinese simply have better ability to control their environment. Central government control can have it's advantages.  The U.S... it's like trying to herd cats.. and then convince them that the investment is needed...  I'm not sure what there is to be done about this... I don't advocate more government control....  So, I'm hoping far more clever people than I are working on it..
 
4) While I have no inside baseball knowledge on this.. from the outside.. it looks like the U.S. Government has been more interested in breaching networks than defending them. (Again, we "probably"are pretty good at offense).. But the government has done a lot to make sure the U.S. Government can snoop.. limiting hardware protection.. bullying companies into building back doors.. trying to limit the complexity of data encryption...  Basically, trying to to limit the ability of public to defend themselves..  in the name of national security (good job!)
 
5) The tiny paranoid side of me.. worries that those routers.. hardware firewalls... switches... motherboards.. etc.. have "Made in China" stamped on them...    I mean if you were the general in charge of China's cyber warfare operations... and the factory down the street is stamping out the system boards for 80% of the worlds routers... Wouldn't you be drooling... just a little bit... at the possibilities?
 
 
 
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Nate Dog    Dont suppress that tiny voice   5/8/2015 3:09:33 PM
Australian intelligence has banned Australian govt institutions, including military and intelligence especially from using anything made by huawei. Found chips soldered onto the board that serve no obvious function, so, banned. Im sure there are plenty of other companies that have slipped through. You're right of course, any kind of digital war would be disastrous for the west as well. It could escalate all the way to close to a MAD type digital scenario. We'd make do and recover within a few years, them, I'm not so sure..
 
 
While our govt are run by small men with small minds, luckily, thats not how private enterprise works. So, all these very clever kids with a proclivity to break into digital places they aren't supposed to be, invariably get recruited to go legit and share what they know. They make a lot of money, criminal records aren't much of a detriment, talent is rewarded regardless. Couple this with increasing outsourcing to such firms, and the wests position isn't so bleak.
 
 
 
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IndividualAnon       5/25/2015 9:34:00 PM
(my take on that.. is we start hitting sites with cruise missiles..)

They may mean cutting undersea internet cables.
 
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joe6pack       5/26/2015 3:17:51 PM
"They may mean cutting undersea internet cables. "
 
Then they need to read up on how the internet works (granted, blowing up a building may not work either.. but it sends a message).  Because that would not isolate the United states from an attack.. which could be routed through Europe.. for example..  cutting the Atlantic and or Pacific fiber connections.. would not seem to be a great plan...  Or going after major backbones... in general... would sort of be the "MAD" approach.. 
 
 
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IndividualAnon       5/26/2015 8:20:51 PM
Obviously, it would not isolate China or protect the US.  However, it seems more probable than cruise missiles and more of a hassle than a DDOS attack would be worth.
 
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