Chinese intelligence and spying (catch all)

[Dayuhan]

If complacency is the absence of fear, I'll wear that label. It's not a definition I'd use, but some might. Where have I ever advocated appeasement?

I personally think the US education system is a greater threat to American security than Beijing and Goldman Sachs combined, but I guess we all have to be hysterical and panic-stricken over something. I mean, think about it... you live in a country where astrologers outnumber astronomers 100 to 1, and you're worried about the Chinese?

[carl]

Ok. I sense there's room for a deal here.

You'll be complacent but not an appeaser and I'll be just hysterical but not panic-stricken. How about that?

[Dayuhan]

If I confess to complacency, may I be excused from tearing my hair and rending my garment? I've no great stock of hair to begin with, and garments get more expensive by the day... plus they're all made in China, so I couldn't replace it without subsidizing the evil ones.

[Firn]

My brother who made his engineering Bachelor in Munich told me that his institute of the TU (technical university) had no troubles to find internships for their students but for the Chinese. It seems as if certain things, especially espionage happened rarely with other nationalities but relative often with the latter.

[Jedburgh]

Defense Security Service: Targeting US Technologies: A Trend Analysis of Reporting From the Defense Industry

....Overall, the majority of collection attempts in FY10 originated from the East Asia and the Pacific region; commercial entities were the most active collector affiliation category for the second year in a row; targeting of information systems (IS) technology more than doubled from FY09; and collectors continued to most commonly use requests for information (RFIs) to elicit information from cleared contractors.

Even as the total suspicious contact reports from industry more than doubled from FY09 to FY10, the East Asian and Pacific region accounted for an even larger percentage of the total in FY10, increasing from 36 percent to 43 percent. East Asia and the Pacific accounted for as much of the total as the next three regions combined. Despite the dramatic increase in the number of reported cases attributed to the second most active region, the Near East, its share of the total actually declined slightly, due to the even greater increase in incidents attributable to East Asia and the Pacific.

As with the East Asia and the Pacific and Near East regions, Europe and Eurasia’s reported collection attempts more than doubled from last year, causing it to displace South and Central Asia as the third most active collector region. Together, East Asia and the Pacific, the Near East, and Europe and Eurasia accounted for over three-quarters of the world-wide total reported collection attempts against the U.S. cleared industrial base.....

[davidbfpo]

This is rather balanced piece of advocacy on the threat from PRC cyber activity, from April 2012 by Jason Healey, Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council of the United States (so a 'Beltway Pundit').

In brief a major challenge to the economic sustainability and health of governments and businesses alike.

The threat of Chinese espionage is so critical that the commander of our military cyber defenses has called it the “the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind.” But the threat is not bad enough to go on the record about the threat, to take risks to share needed information, or even to be willing to tell the Chinese to back off.

These are the government’s Three Silences. Added together I fear they are driving us to defeat.

First: Silence about the threat we face....Second: Silence about practical information which could help the private sector....This leads us to the last silence: Silence to the Chinese about our increasing fury.... By refusing to speak, either to our own people or to the Chinese, we are fighting on an asymmetric battlefield of our adversary’s own choosing. Going public, through naming and shaming those involved, is a winning strategy.

Link:http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/...cyber-silences

[Jedburgh]

This is rather balanced piece of advocacy on the threat from PRC cyber activity, from April 2012 by Jason Healey, Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council...

Balanced? I don't read it as such. Hell, he even advocates a position where if an incident even appears as if it came from China, then we don't bother trying to track it - just hold the Chinese government accountable, regardless. And Healey's piece focuses only on the Chinese, which, although China may be the origin of the majority of cyber espionage, the threat is active in all corners of the world.

However, I do agree with Healey about declassification of malware signatures for private sector security. Overclassification is a serious obstacle to efficiency in too many key areas - a problem clearly identified post-911, but still nowhere near adequately addressed.

But back to the issue - Any realistic and practical advocate of cyber-defense should be stressing the growing potential global threat, not scare-mongering against one particular actor - especially when that characterization builds the perception that China is the sole threat. The threat is real, and although espionage originating from China makes up the largest proportion (Russia is a major, sophisticated player as well), that does not excuse minimizing or ignoring the global nature of cyber espionage. And the global threat will only expand and build with the growth and development of technological capabilities - in effect, the cyber threat is the 21st century's arms race, but with a potentially unlimited number of state and non-state players.

Fortunately, those at the dirty-boots level of cyber defense (who are never actually in a position to get their boots dirty) have been well aware of the growing nature of the threat for a long time, and have been actively engaged in the evolutionary and innovative development of counter-measures for just as long. The mouthpieces at the national public level are simply players engaged in what is to be a bureaucratic spillage of blood over securing future funding, as we approach a defense drawdown and cuts that may resemble the immediate post-Cold War era.

[Ken White]

I personally think the US education system is a greater threat to American security than Beijing and Goldman Sachs combined, but I guess we all have to be hysterical and panic-stricken over something. I mean, think about it... you live in a country where astrologers outnumber astronomers 100 to 1, and you're worried about the Chinese?

All three parts; the first point quite accurately and sadly , the last hilariously .

Shame that hysteria and panic isn't directed at the pathetic state of our education system which promotes a tendency toward those failings as well as an obsessive desire for safety and comfort couched as risk or harm avoidance.

[Ray]

If I were to endorse Chinese activities without giving the rationale, I would have no fear.

Fear arises only if one does not endorse the happenings that create the fear!

An ostrich with its head in the sand, has no fear!

[Dayuhan]

Has anyone here "endorsed Chinese activities"?

Rational assessment of threat needn't produce fear. There's room for disagreement on the extent and nature of threat, but reasonable disagreement is not advanced by panic or hysteria.

[Jedburgh]

...reasonable disagreement is not advanced by panic or hysteria.

But well-crafted and focused panic and hysteria are excellent tools for building project support and raising funds.

[Ray]

A moral panic is caused when an issue threatens the perceived social and the world order.

[Dayuhan]

A moral panic is caused when an issue threatens the perceived social and the world order.

Panic is also often caused when an issue is perceived to threaten that order. The question in that case is whether or not that perception is reasonable. Jedburgh says it well:

well-crafted and focused panic and hysteria are excellent tools for building project support and raising funds.

When somebody wants us to be afraid, there's a very good chance that they're trying to sell something. Always good to take a deep breath and calmly assess the extent to which the alleged issue actually does threaten the social and world order, or any fraction of that order.