[HN Gopher] Chinese hacking spree hit an 'astronomical' number o...
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Chinese hacking spree hit an 'astronomical' number of victims
Author : ombirsharma
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-03-06 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| exabrial wrote:
| What blows my mind is everyone is so concerned about Huawei and
| friends, and yet they still use Windows and other Microsoft
| products. Now _that_ is a true national security threat.
| Datagenerator wrote:
| Microsoft and Google provide the government access to most
| homes and businesses. They are effective tools the government
| will keep close to the chest. Each and every keyboard input
| gets collected as technical telemetry data. It's the global
| version of the more upfront Workplace Analytics your empowered
| employer is scanning constantly as dwellers in shadows. All
| parties play Good cop Bad cop but are eating the fruits of the
| globalist technological emporia.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| [citation needed]
| f69281c wrote:
| Other links for the story that still work:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56304379?xtor=AL-72...
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-hack-white-house-warns-1207...
|
| https://abc17news.com/politics/national-politics/2021/03/05/...
| mc32 wrote:
| Somewhat recently a head of Microsoft was asked about forgoing
| access to the Chinese market if it meant protecting American
| interests in the face of new threats. He unequivocally said, yes.
| He was willing to forgo their market.
|
| I'm not sure Apple and others who either sell product there or
| have large manufacturing there are as willing to forgo the
| 'promise market', but it looks more and more we will have to.
| More or less the next Russia in terms of sanctions.
|
| We'll see how Biden handles this. I'm sure it's a tough call.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > We'll see how Biden handles this. I'm sure it's a tough call.
|
| I don't see how he can. I don't see how the next 2-3 US
| administrations can.
|
| If the current level of China's "scare power" is enough to
| paralyze the US, you will have less, and less options on the
| table with each year as you go.
|
| Time works against the US, and the West at large.
| r00fus wrote:
| The proposal was always TPP or some transnational treaty like
| that.
|
| You know, the one that went over like a lead ballon and
| likely cost Hillary the 2016 election?
|
| Likelihood that this kind of treaty coming into force now is
| essentially nil.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Well, what solution do you propose then?
| [deleted]
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Talk is cheap. Has MS pulled out of China like Google did in
| 2009 before they backtracked?
| jonathannat wrote:
| So china's aggression in the past few years isn't out of
| position of strength, it's from a position of extreme weakness.
| And with Biden continuing Trump's china strategy in economic
| sanctions/stopping tech transfers/getting companies to move out
| of china, as well as now forming alliances to combat china, the
| continuing overall trend for china is decline and withdrawal,
| and for democratic countries is unity and strength. some recent
| events include:
|
| - Lowest approval ever of China from US citizens (20%). similar
| decline/rates in other democratic countries this year. That
| means people are boycotting "made in china" goods.
|
| - Japan self defence force, UK aircraft carrier, France
| submarines, and Germany frigates are now (and will be)
| patrolling south china sea along with US carriers.
|
| - UK and Canada offering citizenships to Hong Kong citizens
|
| - QUAD alliance (Japan, India, Australia, US), as well as 4 out
| of the 5 eyes alliance, increasing activities
|
| - Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US and other countries offering
| continued incentives for companies to move back from China
|
| - Apple moving iPhone, iPads and MacBook productions out of
| China
|
| - Even Angela Merkel, China's most important ally in europe,
| has openly warned China to open up its markets or suffer. Also,
| she will be stepping down later this year (THANK GOD), and
| anti-China sentiments are rising in Germany
|
| - US to build anti-China missile network along first island
| chain on Japan, Taiwan
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Ind...
|
| BUT. An encircled crazed maniac will do strange things. It will
| probably do something ridiculously stupid like attacking
| Taiwan. The attack will fail, and china will be sanctioned by
| the world just like russia.
| elefanten wrote:
| You're not wrong about any trends you mention. I don't know
| if my level of confidence in seeing all these things through
| is as high as yours (especially wrt democratic unity). But
| the doom and gloom outlooks have certainly gotten ahead of
| themselves.
| __m wrote:
| Microsoft is a crucial pillar in the US's political and
| industrial espionage, they won't let that happen. It wouldn't
| protect the US from threats, it would protect China.
| vgchh wrote:
| Increasingly, companies like Tesla also need to figure out how
| they will adjust to an adversarial China and the corresponding
| shift in Geopolitical reality. I remember reading that China
| may derive 40% of its revenues from Chinese market soon. Also
| wonder if this is already priced into Tesla's stock. That being
| said, I am also sure Elon and Co. are not sitting idle and
| twiddling their thumbs. In any case, it will be interesting to
| see how they deal with this.
| bushbaba wrote:
| The us let's Chinese firms generally speaking full access to
| the us market.
|
| The CCP doesn't allow the us companies the same.
|
| Why our government let that happen. Letting so much business
| leave to the CCP will be one of the greatest failings of the us
| government.
| Aunche wrote:
| The US has a significantly larger consumer market. A lot of
| people would complain if they were unable to import cheap
| goods from China.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yeah but it means they don't get paid as much either as
| there is no wage pressure at the bottom.
|
| You can't have $5 T-shirts and also a $15 minimum wage.
| trhway wrote:
| >You can't have $5 T-shirts and also a $15 minimum wage.
|
| with $15 minimum wage there is no need for $5 T-shirts.
| mc32 wrote:
| I agree!
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| You can't have $5 T-shirts and also a $15 minimum wage
| _and low unemployment_. You can have $5 T-shirts and a
| $15 minimum wage and no jobs, but nobody actually wants
| that outcome.
| Aunche wrote:
| The bottom earners aren't the people driving the consumer
| market. That's why they tend to advocate for
| protectionism.
| nullifidian wrote:
| Because the US in large part is ruled in the interest of the
| international capital and the ruling elites, not in the
| interest of its general populace. It was more profitable to
| deindustrialize the US.
| wayneftw wrote:
| Because the people who own and control everything would
| rather build up a government like the CCP so they can better
| control the "useless eaters" (as Henry Kissinger put it).
|
| "Made in China" is exactly the type of curse that the global
| elite like to put on people. It's plain as day what's coming
| next and yet, everybody has just accepted it since the 70s.
| China will be the world superpower to replace the US and
| apparently we're all fine with that.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| China acts in China's interests. They as an institution are
| acting no different than they have throughout the dozens of
| empires before it. It's basically Ming 2.0.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| We need blocking foreign direct investment for America by any
| Chinese from 20 years previous. Today we need grand
| incentives for tax reducing to make repurchasing of China
| investments in America. No Chinese should have owningship on
| any asset of America. Chinese is hostile power to good things
| all in world. Need containment to until collapse of
| government it have now.
| dgellow wrote:
| A few speculative ideas/thoughts:
|
| - The US needs access to China's goods to be viable. For half
| a century US companies improved their
| efficiency/competitiveness by moving their process to China.
| They now have too many dependencies in the form of Chinese
| manufacturing and development capabilities and do not have
| the skills/knowledge/talents/infrastructure in the US.
| Because of this China can dictate their rules with zero
| pressure (though India and other countries will surely be a
| difficult competition at some point, or maybe already are).
|
| - China owns more than 1 trillion of US debt. In the past the
| country bought a massive amount of US debt to inflate USD vs
| RMB and boost their own economy. Currently China has no
| reasons to sell their reserve as that would impact their
| economy negatively. If the US blocks them they may start
| massively selling US debt, which would impact USD and the US
| economy.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| > China owns more than 1 trillion of US debt. ... they may
| start massively selling US debt, which would impact USD and
| the US economy.
|
| We just printed _four_ trillion dollars out of thin air and
| the sky didn 't fall.
|
| What makes you think that printing one quarter of that
| amount in order to sterilize a dump of treasuries will
| cause the sky to fall?
| NoOneNew wrote:
| Not the way it works, at all.
|
| Treasury bonds are issued and put on the bond market.
| When purchased, those funds are the "money printer go
| brrrr". It's not so much printing money, just getting
| deeper into debt. Call it what it is, so it can be
| approached properly. Calling a tiger a duck isn't going
| to save you from getting mauled to death.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Treasury bonds are issued and put on the bond market.
| When purchased, those funds are the "money printer go
| brrrr".
|
| No, they aren't.
|
| You are confusing fiscal deficits with monetary
| expansion. Worse yet, seem to be complaining that GP is
| failing to confuse monetary expansion with fiscal
| deficits, when suggesting use of the former to deal with
| the adverse effects of a particular source of constraints
| on the ability to leverage the latter.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| These debt am purchased only tiny share in total debt. We
| are spent 2 more trillions in one bill more only just now.
| Chinese are use currency basically stole from world for to
| purchase these debt:
| https://twitter.com/adamscrabble/status/1094717028009689089
|
| We need in total embargo China. She are largest threat
| among existence for continuing America.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The US needs access to China's goods to be viable.
|
| No, it really isn't. The thing the US is indeed does very
| little for an economy of its size.
|
| Washington can slam fist on the table, and US industry will
| be out of China by tomorrow, without much impact at home
| besides no iToys this season, and few percents off its
| stock market.
|
| Lack of consumer goods would of course be upsetting, but
| people wouldn't die from lack of them.
| vkou wrote:
| Yes, it does. Run a political campaign on 'All the stuff
| you buy? I'm going to make it cost more,' and you will be
| slaughtered at the polls.
|
| People barely making ends meet aren't very interested in
| those kinds of political statements.
|
| You could, of course, try to lie to them about what the
| consequences of your policies are going to be.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You are correct, and this is America's, and West's
| predicament.
|
| If you can't do this, you can't do this.
|
| And you certainly wouldn't be able to do even more
| painful things which are truly needed for the West to
| have any chance to put the genie back into the bottle.
|
| China, and Russia have effectively conditioned the NATO
| countries over the decades into "self-beneficial
| inaction." Now, seeing words like yours proves their
| strategy worked.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is still a massive improvement over the Cold War,
| though.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| Aside from the small detail that we appear to be losing,
| this time.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's a funny kind of losing. It looks more like "not
| totally dominant" to me, which may be confused with
| losing by people who've not experienced that.
|
| What has the US really _lost_? No territory, no people;
| there 's no stream of refugees to the "winning" Chinese
| side.
| elefanten wrote:
| It's a matter of figuring out the process. You can swap
| sets of things based on how easy it is to achieve
| _similar enough_ economics elsewhere or elsewise.
|
| This isn't some insurmountable problem. Yes, there are
| scenarios where you go "too fast" and raise too many
| prices too quickly and piss people off. Or, you go slower
| and make it more palatable.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Lack of consumer goods would of course be upsetting,
| but people wouldn't die from lack of them.
|
| Lack of consumer goods means lack of jobs for people who
| transport, warehouse, and sell consumer goods.
|
| Lack of jobs means lack of money to pay for things like
| food, shelter, medical care, etc, only some of which the
| US has adequate safety nets for.
|
| People will, indeed, die from lack of consumer goods.
| elefanten wrote:
| Equivocation. Gp means lack of specific consumer goods,
| for a set time.
|
| Your comment makes it seem like this would lead to
| catastrophe or collapse.
|
| It would more likely lead to industry rotation and
| employment change.
|
| Yes, you can reduce any macro factor to a death count,
| but those are always trading off in all directions. It's
| meaningless to categorically single out a particular
| scenario of swapping production as more deadly than the
| others.
| refenestrator wrote:
| It would take a generation to build an electronics
| industry equivalent to shenzhen, and would require state
| involvement/investment that we're not capable of.
|
| I'd like to regain industrial capacity too but we're
| missing an entire population base of expertise and
| relationships.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > US industry will be out of China by tomorrow
|
| Yeah, I think you're under estimating the
| interconnectedness of the supply chain there. Would
| definitely make the pandemic disruption look small.
|
| And you're assuming China won't retaliate. I wouldn't
| like to be a US national in China when that happened.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Yeah, I think you're under estimating the
| interconnectedness of the supply chain there. Would
| definitely make the pandemic disruption look small.
|
| _Pandemic disruption is small._ A disruption on this
| scale was nothing unheard of historically. Infectious
| diseases were taking millions of lives in the developed
| world before the advent of antibiotics, and to lesser
| extend until the bio-technological revolution of
| seventies.
|
| What was unheard of was world's biggest power being
| rendered utterly impotent, and in complete stupor by such
| minor events.
|
| I see a country like US being otherwise fully capable of
| dealing with a crisis on this scale _easily._
|
| > And you're assuming China won't retaliate. I wouldn't
| like to be a US national in China when that happened.
|
| Of course they will! You will be cutting into personal
| coffers of their highest elites. It will be a very
| personal challenge to them. Having them eat watery gruel
| like lowly peasants will infuriate them.
|
| _That 's exactly the POINT._ You see a bad guy, you
| challenge him to beat him. You don't beat a bad guy by
| avoiding him.
| pjc50 wrote:
| So .. casualty projections? How far up the escalation do
| you want to go?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > How far up the escalation do you want to go?
|
| Nobody wins a fight without fighting it to the end.
| Escalate until you win.
| pjc50 wrote:
| .. and you emerge from your nuclear bunker and look at
| the glowing rubble where Taiwan used to be?
|
| The old Cold War was very clear that final victory
| involved civilian deaths in the millions. Be very clear:
| are you advocating for that?
| elefanten wrote:
| The US does not _need_ access to or business with China to
| be "viable". That's a caricature.
|
| Some replacements might be slower and more expensive to
| spin up than people and industries have wanted or been
| willing to do, but there's literally nothing unique in
| China.
|
| The cost advantage, at this point, has eroded greatly and
| is on trajectory to continue doing so (especially if they
| are to meet their own stated and industrial policy goals).
|
| Also, China is dependent on lots of thing from other
| countries, including the US, so the notion that they can
| dictate rules "with zero pressure" is wrong.
|
| Finally, the debt piece is not something I understand well,
| but I almost exclusively see that addressed by experts as a
| faulty notion. At least, the notion that all China has to
| do to cripple the US suddenly start selling tons of US debt
| or dollars is total fantasy.
| mdasen wrote:
| $1T of US debt sounds like a lot, but it's less than 4% of
| US debt. It's not an insignificant amount, but they don't
| own a lot to impact the US economy. Japan owns more
| ($1.25T) and the UK and Ireland get up to $0.75T.
|
| Realistically, what would china do? If you "start massively
| selling US debt", what does that mean? Someone has to buy
| it. You're increasing the supply while demand probably
| stays pretty constant. But realistically, I don't think it
| could go below 90-cents on the dollar. I mean, who wouldn't
| take US government debt at a 10% discount? Compared to
| commercial debt from a company with way more risk than the
| US government, that's way better. So, are we talking about
| raising the US government's cost to borrow by a few
| percentage points for a few months?
|
| China can't really disrupt the US economy via its debt
| holdings. Actually cutting China off from the US would have
| a far greater impact. Heck, Trump's tariffs were a tiny
| move and created intense disruption in a lot of industries
| like bicycle sales. That's not even cutting off China or
| anything. Imagine if smartphones couldn't be imported into
| the US for a year or two?
|
| But I don't think the original poster is talking about
| "cutting China off" in whole. I think the issue in question
| is about a company like ByteDance/TikTok getting to operate
| in the US while Google, Facebook, Clubhouse, etc. get
| blocked from accessing China. If TikTok doesn't need to
| compete with US companies in China, but
| Twitter/Instagram/Clubhouse need to compete with TikTok in
| the US, it means that Chinese companies will have double
| the market to sell into.
|
| China's GDP is around $24T and the US's is around $21T so a
| service like TikTok can get access to all $45T while a US-
| based company like Facebook can't get access to the Chinese
| market. If you're able to service both countries, your
| investment in software, infrastructure, etc. goes further.
|
| I don't think it's about cutting China off, but rather
| wanting a more level playing field. When we're talking
| about something like smartphones, Apple, Samsung, and
| others sell into the Chinese market a lot and while China
| might do things to help its own companies like Huawei, it's
| open enough to placate a lot of people. That's very
| different from Facebook and Twitter which are banned in the
| country. Apple is 20% of the Chinese smartphone market.
|
| If a US company makes the Next Big Thing in social
| networking, a Chinese company gets to copy it for the
| Chinese market. If a Chinese company makes the Next Big
| Thing, they can launch it in the US market as TikTok did.
|
| I don't think this is about cutting Chinese manufacturing
| off. I think this is a question of whether firms like
| ByteDance/TikTok should be allowed to come into the US
| while US firms like Facebook or Twitter can't enter China.
| fspeech wrote:
| You may have a valid point but on a technical note TikTok
| does not operate in China either because they don't
| conform with China's content censorship policy.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| It's called Douyin in China.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Isn't Douyin a separate service offered by ByteDance
| directly (or a separate subsidiary from TikTok), not a
| local name for TikTok, which is offered by the company of
| the same name which is a subsidiary of ByteDance?
| NoOneNew wrote:
| >who wouldn't take US government debt at a 10% discount?
|
| Better question, who wants to be the guy that goes, "I
| have a great idea. It'll really piss off those yanks.
| It'll just cost us about $100 billion (the price of like
| 7 Gerald Ford class carriers) along with the interest
| payments. A small price to pay to piss them off and have
| their private corps and allies buy their debt at a
| discount."
|
| That's borderline a scenario like that comic meme at a
| board meeting for ideas and the dude gets thrown out the
| window.
| yorwba wrote:
| China, generally speaking, gives US companies full access to
| the Chinese market.
|
| When that is not the case, it's usually in sectors where
| _Chinese_ companies don 't have full access to the Chinese
| market either. If Facebook or Google were Chinese companies
| but hosted the same content, do you think they'd be allowed
| inside the Great Firewall? Actually, we don't need to guess:
| when Qihoo 360 tried to provide _censored_ access to Western
| social media, they were quickly shut down:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/12/chinese-app-that-let-
| users-a...
|
| Western companies who don't operate in China aren't shut out
| because the government treats them differently. On the
| contrary, the government would treat them like Chinese
| companies, and some aren't willing to put up with that.
| Chinese companies don't get a choice.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Because we're arrogant. We thought that if we go down the
| road we went down, they'd naturally settle into their proper
| place as manufactory for the West without wanting a seat at
| the table.
|
| Now they're a global power and, gasp, they act like one.
| Nobody could have seen this coming.
| kelnos wrote:
| The US also believed that giving China an example of "the
| good way" via access to the US markets would cause them to
| open up and allow access in kind. Turned out that was a
| pretty naive belief.
| baybal2 wrote:
| It wasn't even a belief in the first place.
|
| I read a dozen books on post-Nixon US politics.
|
| The amount of allegations from both sides of US politics
| that the other benefitted in the personal capacity from
| trade with China is staggering.
|
| At least some of them must be genuine.
|
| It comes to a very simple explanation that communists
| have indeed been influencing US politics for decades with
| very crude means, and that they were successful in that.
|
| This is an embarrassing admission US has to do first
| before any recovery can be started.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| It'd be nice to see some supporting citations.
| refenestrator wrote:
| The very simple explanation is that the USA is
| infiltrated by communists?
| cambalache wrote:
| OP is a sharp, highly perceptive individual. Commies took
| American post-Nixon politics, what other than the total
| red dominion could explain:
|
| Invasion to Grenada
|
| Invasion to Panama
|
| Invasion to Iraq
|
| Bombing of Serbia
|
| Bombing of Somalia
|
| Invasion of Iraq
|
| Invasion of Afghanistan
|
| Bombing of Libya
|
| Trickle-down economics
|
| Iran-Contra
|
| 24 years of Republican presidents out of the last 40
| years.
|
| This is the kind of high-quality comment that this site
| is well known for.
| narism wrote:
| Nothing quite so dramatic. The US political system is
| rife with bribery/bribery-adjacent (ex: lobbying)
| activity and they are saying both sides have been
| influenced by this. For examples, see the 1996 Clinton
| campaign finance investigations and donations to Jeb
| Bush's Super PAC. There is likely a lot more out there
| that we don't know about hidden through donations
| funneled through non-profits.
| baybal2 wrote:
| In other words, yes. I avoided stating it this bluntly
| for it being almost a cartoon trope.
|
| But... but one can't believe into any other explanation
| as any much credible.
|
| Do hundreds of US political insiders lobby for China in
| one voice just for nothing?
|
| You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very
| greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders.
|
| American legal system prohibits jailing people for
| anything but being caught red handed in cases of
| political corruption.
|
| I have no idea what you can do about that without doing
| political persecution, but on other hand if you leave it
| be it will keep being exploited like hell.
| chrischen wrote:
| > You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very
| greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders.
|
| Lol you've just described capitalists.
| refenestrator wrote:
| What about water flouridation? Stealing our essence or
| no?
| jjcc wrote:
| I just happened to read a new article on "Moon Of
| Alabama". Then I realize there must be some debate on HN.
| I'm not disappointed
|
| Here's what lead me to come back to HN:
|
| https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/is-china-hacking-
| rando...
| nbardy wrote:
| The US never believed this, the politicians told this
| story so they could get richer off trade deals and cheap
| labor.
|
| Anyone who was critically thinking saw this coming a long
| way out.
| [deleted]
| kingkawn wrote:
| I don't think anyone was thinking it through at all. We
| just needed cheap goods to placate our population and they
| needed the jobs to placate theirs.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I'd recommend reading the 100 year marathon and watching
| the latest Curtis if you're curious to learn more on that.
| :)
| RspecMAuthortah wrote:
| > He unequivocally said, yes. He was willing to forgo their
| market.
|
| US is a corporate republic. The republic that founders dreamed
| of has waned and frailed from generations of corporate sellout
| political, legal, media, and business conglomerate
| establishments. Shareholders will come first and will continue
| to do so. With 33 trillion dollars debt there is not really any
| other option left now other than to continue to sail the
| sinking ship the same way.
|
| > We'll see how Biden handles this. I'm sure it's a tough call.
|
| He won't. He is just the face of the same old thinking that
| brought us here. Just like all of his predecessors in last 40
| years.
| 1996 wrote:
| > He won't. He is just the face of the same old thinking that
| brought us here. Just like all of his predecessors in last 40
| years.
|
| And it's a good thing. Only Trump was bold enough to
| entertain the idea of a commercial war with China.
|
| I live in the US, but I don't want that. I want peace and
| freedom. China and the US are natural allies given the
| complementarity of the industries.
|
| Let's make peace not war.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| China needs a new political system before we can talk about
| anyone being their allies. The CCP have made it clear they
| are only interested in total power.
| r00fus wrote:
| How likely is that to happen?
| qart wrote:
| All the lives lost across the world to COVID and the
| economic impact of the previous year has demonstrated that
| "make peace" with CCP is not a good idea. I am, by no
| means, advocating war. But the rest of the world _has_ to
| take measures to ensure bidirectional access to
| information. Here 's what I _am_ advocating: If a country
| wants free flow of goods, people, and money, there has to
| be free flow of information too. If it means curbing
| economic activities in hostile governments, while the
| decision must not be taken lightly, it needs to be taken
| sometimes.
| ycombigator wrote:
| The CCP is a dramatically larger threat than Russia has been
| for at least a decade probably two.
| lokimedes wrote:
| As a Dane I wonder what's behind using Hafnium as the name of the
| Chinese organization? (Hafnium is an element, named after the
| latin name of Copenhagen - Hafnia).
| loic-sharma wrote:
| Microsoft goes down the periodic table to name each new threat
| organization.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| They really hate the Danes
| [deleted]
| yostrovs wrote:
| Perhaps the White House needs to use something other than Zoom.
| [deleted]
| yumraj wrote:
| We need two things, I don't think either will happen:
|
| 1) sanctions against China
|
| 2) a _Greater_ Firewall outside China, right on all fiber cables,
| blocking /filtering all traffic from China.
|
| China is a hostile nation and we need to treat it as such.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > China is a hostile nation
|
| I really have no idea where this narrative comes from. Chinese
| government is evil, hostile, and cruel even to (some of) their
| own citizens. However, China as a nation are people - just like
| you and me. Why should we treat them as "hostile"? It makes no
| sense at all. This kind of crooked reasoning and blurred
| thinking is one of the main causes of all wars in the history
| of mankind.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Is anyone really of the view that most Chinese are evil? I
| don't think that's what calling them a hostile nation is
| meant to mean.
|
| The problem is that the Chinese government, who ARE hostile,
| take advantage of the fact that we treat most Chinese as non-
| hostile. Nobody knows how many Chinese students and workers
| in the West are essentially spies for the Chinese government,
| but we do know it is enough to be worried about.
|
| I'm not sure what we can do about that but I don't think we
| can pretend it's not an issue.
| Aunche wrote:
| >Nobody knows how many Chinese students and workers in the
| West are essentially spies for the Chinese government
|
| But we do know how many of them are contributing
| domestically. A growing percentage of American PHD
| graduates came from China and the vast majority of them are
| planning to stay.
|
| https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-
| Trends-i...
| chrischen wrote:
| If you believe that most Chinese citizens are in support of
| their government then calling the government evil is an
| indirect attack on them. If you don't believe the Chinese
| support their government then that's an entirely different
| topic you may have to educate yourself on.
| adolph wrote:
| Maybe the word evil should be thought of as "characterized
| by a value system of sufficient difference as to be in
| conflict with our own, either mutually or asymmetrically."
| carapace wrote:
| Yeah, this. Chinese culture is much older and more widespread
| than the CCP. The Chinatown here in San Francisco is older
| than the state of California. We had our first Chinese New
| Year Parade in 1851.
|
| The _Communists_ are the problem, and even then not
| unqualified: the CCP has lifted hundreds of millions of
| people out of relative poverty to economic prosperity, even
| as they do terrible things to Tibetans, Uighurs, and Falun
| Gong, among others.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Chinese_New_Year.
| ..
| [deleted]
| remarkEon wrote:
| This is the hardest part about discussing this issue, for
| sure. The rapid technological and economic expansion
| achieved by CCP is the most impressive in all of human
| history in terms of numbers. It's brutal, for sure, but
| that achievement means a lot of Chinese people are willing
| to look past the bad things, and look forward towards goals
| of further technological development.
|
| The important difference between the "West" and China is
| that everyone knows CCP is going to look out for China.
| It's not immediately clear that governments in the west do
| the same for their own.
| chrischen wrote:
| I think you can argue the US government at least looks
| out for its own stakeholders, but one thing for sure is
| that the US government isn't looking out for the
| interests of people of other countries. So when you stare
| wide-eyed wondering why some foreign nation doesn't just
| do what the US says don't be amazed.
| yumraj wrote:
| By that logic at WW II, Germany was also a nation of German
| people, so am assuming per the above definition Germany was
| _not_ a hostile nation?
|
| A _nation_ is generally its government, CCP in the example of
| China and yes it is hostile against every non-China nation.
| Chinese are people just like every other people.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > A nation is generally its government
|
| This is _exactly_ the argument I object to. As per
| definition, "A nation is a community of people formed on
| the basis of a common language, territory, history,
| ethnicity, or a common culture." Keeping this distinction
| (between the government and the citizens) is crucial
| because the discourse influences actions.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The people of China don't control espionage; the
| government does. So you'd better think about the
| government when the topic is espionage, which it is in
| this discussion.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Agreed, and that's exactly why I hate it when someone
| hijacks the discussion about the government and espionage
| by adding the nation to the equation.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "The nation" in this context _is_ the government, no
| matter how much you keep trying to change the definition.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| It's possible you have a custom, non-standard
| understanding of the term. According to Merriam Webster,
| it has 5 meanings, and none of them refers to the
| government.
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nation
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Read the news. You see headlines like "US sends two
| carriers to Persian Gulf". Not "Government of the US",
| but "US". That is, in external affairs - military and
| diplomatic and espionage - it is a normal, customary
| usage to refer to the government of the country by the
| name of the country. It's used that way, whether you
| agree or not.
|
| Now, the point you're making - that there is a difference
| between the government and the people, and we need to
| remember it - is a valid point, and an important one. But
| you're splitting the wrong hair to make that point.
| zepto wrote:
| False.
|
| Definition 1.b. in your link _includes_ the government
| explicitly.
|
| None of them _exclude_ the government, and they can all
| reasonably include the government.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Of course the nation as a _community of people_ in 1b
| also includes the government, but you can hardly say the
| nation understood in this sense is hostile. What you can
| say is that the government is hostile - we have proofs of
| that. We can also say that some minuscule percentage of
| the population is hostile - we can see some evidence of
| that. But to say that a nation is hostile is really
| crossing a red (no pun intended) line.
|
| I'm discussing this apparently insignificant issue ad
| nauseam only because repeated conflation of government
| and citizens in discourse, media, and ultimately our
| minds are not without consequences.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| Too funny to hear this when there is a hostile nation that has
| fought wars that lead to millions of deaths since ww2 in the
| name of freedom, a nation that uses exactly the same methods to
| spy on absolutely everything - the US has accessed the secret
| communication of the Soviet Union for many years -, a nation
| that has led to chaos in the middle east and in post soviet
| republics.
|
| Sorry, but it is time that the world is sanctioning the united
| states in the way that you propose to sanction China that is
| finding back to its old strength.
|
| best regards from a white person from europe, not a chinese.
| hntrader wrote:
| It's not my intention to make this political, but it's odd to
| me that the current administration sanctioned the Saudis over
| the murder of a journalist, but has little more than stern
| words towards China over the Uyghur situation and cyber
| espionage. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll
| eventually do something.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There are no sanctions on Saudi Arabia, only on some minor
| officials.
| hntrader wrote:
| I'm aware of that, but shouldn't we expect something either
| on par with that or something that goes even further than
| that when it comes to China?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The exact same kind of sanctions were imposed much
| further up the chain in China, yes.
|
| And they are quite ineffective.
| angio wrote:
| > a Greater Firewall outside China, right on all fiber cables,
| blocking/filtering all traffic from China.
|
| How do you propose to coordinate hundreds of countries to cut
| one country off the internet?
| e40 wrote:
| I love the world we live in: everyone has an opinion on
| severely complex matters and proffers it in an absolutely
| confident way that their opinion is the truth.
|
| I don't like China's behavior (toward us and it's own). I don't
| believe for a minute that I know how to solve the problem,
| because every solution is bound to have unintended side
| effects, some which may be worse than the original problem.
| mattigames wrote:
| Your opinion is also problematic, specially when politicians
| hold it (which is not uncommon), as in "This problem is way
| too complex, let's do nothing and pray that it will fix
| itself"
| ahelwer wrote:
| Sanctions lead to widespread suffering & even death among the
| civilian population. Why do you want the Chinese people to
| suffer or die? Sanctions are scarcely less psychotic than
| bombing a school or hospital. The violence is just hidden in
| life expectancy reduction & many other metrics instead of "N
| civilians' bodies ripped apart by bombs".
|
| Oh, and targeted sanctions - aren't. Entities will view any
| sanctions as a legal risk and find it easier to just stop
| trading with the country at all. See Iran with medical supplies
| during the pandemic.
|
| This idea that sanctions are a peaceful or nonviolent
| alternative to bombing things needs to die. In the 90s the
| sanctions against Iraq led to the deaths of half a million
| civilians and caused multiple successive UN humanitarian
| coordinators in Iraq to resign, calling the sanctions regime
| "genocidal". How anyone can continue to view sanctions as a
| favorable option is beyond me.
| hntrader wrote:
| What alternatives do you propose, and do you have the same
| view about the recent sanctions on the Saudis?
| ahelwer wrote:
| Why must there be alternatives? Why do anything at all?
| This bias toward a manufactured vague "do something!!!"
| feeling has just led to the deaths of countless civilians
| around the world.
| hntrader wrote:
| Do you think not interfering in the Rwandan genocide was
| the best move?
| Aunche wrote:
| The ethnic tensions were created by western interference
| in the first place. Perhaps intervention could have
| mitigated the scale of the tragedy, but it also could
| have made it worse by prolonging it.
| alacombe wrote:
| > Sanctions lead to widespread suffering & even death among
| the civilian population
|
| So does doing nothing.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| The status quo also leads to suffering and death in the
| civilian population and it's hard to predict which future
| would be worse
| Aunche wrote:
| Has more suffering and death occurred in China before or
| after China opened up to the rest of the world? If they
| remained closed off to this day, they would much more
| closely resemble North Korea.
| alacombe wrote:
| _Before_ , for sure, Mao policies were pretty ruthless.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Actually it's quite easy to predict! We can simply look at
| the track record of Western intervention since WW2, see
| that it comes down so squarely on the side of "please USA
| just leave the world alone, my god" that it achieves the
| platonic definition of a square, then call it a day.
| throwawaybumeer wrote:
| I wonder if Disjunctive Consulting would appreciate you
| working for them knowing how much you hate the US. Why
| not just move back to Canada?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Why exclude WW2?
| ahelwer wrote:
| I'm assuming you're saying this because you want to
| compare China to Nazi Germany, which is strange when the
| USSR is a much more apt comparison that existed in the
| postwar period.
| emteycz wrote:
| Why do you think so? China is acting very much like Nazis
| in many cases. That they both call themselves communists
| doesn't mean much, actions matter.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I'm just curious about people's reasoning whenever they
| cherrypick arbitrary start/end dates
| ahelwer wrote:
| WW2 marked the birth of America as global superpower, as
| it was the only developed nation to have its
| infrastructure basically untouched by the war.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Maybe you shouldn't assume. Maybe you should take
| Rebelgecko's question at face value, and actually answer
| it. If you're going to claim that the rest of the world
| just wants the US to leave it alone, why exclude World
| War II?
| emteycz wrote:
| There are parts of the world like eastern Europe that
| would've liked US intervention, on the other hand.
| amelius wrote:
| We need to make sure that companies take security seriously.
| Perhaps frequent pen-testing by independent companies should be
| mandatory.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Yeah that sounds like a great idea. Ensure even more that no
| one inside of China will have access to information about human
| rights. And then the Chinese government can get to use
| propaganda against their own citizens even more effectively.
| There's no way that could backfire. And there are no ethical
| problems with what you are suggesting either!
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Maybe we should play the propaganda game too? Block most
| services and traffic but selectively allow things through
| that have propaganda value.
|
| Given the amount of suspicious Chinese devices and traffic,
| you'd imagine we should be doing something though?
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > Maybe we should play
|
| Who is 'we'? Chances are you live in a country founded in
| democratic principles. This means after each election,
| priorities change, based on the politicians that are voted
| into office.
|
| Take the USA as a good example. The priorities of the
| 2008-2016 administration were undermined by the 2017-2020
| administration, and the priorities of the 2017-2020
| administration are being undermined by the 2021-now
| administration.
|
| Both sides think they're right, and were doing what was
| right for the country. Both sides think the other was an
| existential threat to the nation, and use similar rhetoric
| to justify their actions.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| > Ensure even more that no one inside of China will have
| access to information about human rights.
|
| That ship sailed long ago.
| yumraj wrote:
| Please feel free to suggest alternates.
|
| If the only alternate is status quo, then it's not working
| very well is it for:
|
| 1) Tibetans, Uighurs and other minorities
|
| 2) Taiwan, India, and basically any country that shares a
| border which China, since China has border issues with
| _every_ country that it shares a border with
|
| 3) US, and Western world whose IP is being stolen everyday
| and is being constantly under attack from China
| swebs wrote:
| I really don't see #2 being feasible. What about networking
| over phone lines? Or hacker groups just physically being moved
| outside the border?
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.thenexthint.com/white-house-warns-
| after-microsof..., which points to this.
|
| " _Please submit the original source. If a post reports on
| something found on another site, submit the latter._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rapsey wrote:
| I guess that is the modern way of deflecting blame away from
| yourself for security incidents. Blame the russians, chinese or
| just "state level actors".
| ycombigator wrote:
| Stop buying Chinese goods.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| Stop buying American goods.
| chewz wrote:
| Stop buying Microsoft profucts
| KirillPanov wrote:
| Stop buying goods.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Where is the proof that this was a Chinese hacking group? I
| certainly don't trust Microsoft to provide it. In fact, it's very
| concerning that Microsoft seems to be in some quasi-governmental
| role in this. It's literally a giant security hole in their
| software, why should we trust what they say?
|
| The White House acting as a PR unit for MS (or is it vice versa?)
| is a serious problem.
| loceng wrote:
| How are we to trust you're not a paid Putin or CCP
| propagandist? Arguably Microsoft has far more credibility than
| you - my point being there are ways people orient for trusting
| individuals and organizations.
|
| If you think the current White House administration and
| Microsoft aren't on the more trustworthy side of the trust
| spectrum, then who in your opinion is more trustworthy?
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| I think Microsoft and the current White House are on the
| extreme side of untrustworthy. What has MS _ever_ done that
| was trustworthy? Their entire existence has been based on
| abusing a monopoly. The US government is also extremely
| untrustworthy (c.f. the 20th century). The combination of
| these two entities pushing the same story is a huge red flag.
|
| Who would I trust? I'll start with someone providing some
| sort of proof. Which is entirely absent here.
| elefanten wrote:
| That's a fantasy burden you've constructed. What would even
| count as "proof"? Anything that incrementally changes the
| field of possibility? Or something that definitely proves
| what happened?
|
| Microsoft has done untrustworthy things. They've also build
| the most successful (esp. in the longer view) commercial
| computing ecosystem because it hit the right balance
| between stability/robustness/usability. Many elements of
| that include proving some minimum burdens of
| trustworthiness (not to be confused with earning absolute
| trust).
|
| The US government... cf the 20th century? You mean the
| greatest secular advancements in the human condition in
| history? And as for the age of "American Empire" (post WW2?
| Post Cold War?)... are you referring to the relatively most
| peaceful, humane, self-effacing hegemon that has ever been
| known the planet (not to be confused with a perfectly
| peaceful and human hegemon)?
|
| This flippant stance combined with absolutely no
| countervailing context and fantasy burdens of proof...
| please.
| prophesi wrote:
| I mean, it's no secret that Microsoft has a $10 billion
| contract with the US Government. And it's also no secret
| that attributing blame to cyber attacks is a hard
| problem. You can study the tools/exploits used, the files
| modified, the associated IP addresses, all of which can
| be easily obfuscated or used to scapegoat.
|
| I don't really doubt the allegations, as the motive makes
| sense, but I'm hoping there will be a good postmortem.
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