Australia concluded China was behind hack on parliament, political parties

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1W00VF

by baylearn • 7 years ago

226 116 7 years ago

remotecool• 7 years ago

It's always baffled me as to why Russia gets so much attention when it comes to election hacking, when they have a fraction of the resources and economy as China.

basementcat• 7 years ago

Is it because China appears to have done a better job of projecting soft power in recent history than Russia?

devoply2• 7 years ago

Pretty much and the US and its five eyes allies are the kings of soft power in espionage. Blaming people for hacking them while being the biggest hackers of them all, etc. The West is either oblivious or true believers. But really at the end of the day it's more or less the side that you are on that determines your truth, not the actual truth.

The issue then is that we thought China was on our side, then we discovered that not really they had their own ambitions which do not coincide with ours. And so we're slowing trying to take away as much power as we can from them so we can bring them under control. These pronouncements then are an attack on China's soft power as everyone is doing it anyway all the time.

It seems at the same time China is attempting to establish its own power structure while trying to negotiate with the West, look for instance at the moves it is making with Iran.

smt884• 7 years ago

It’s probably the fact that Russia tried, succeeded, and continues to do it to the US, the most dangerous country in the world. I haven’t heard anything about real-world Chinese attacks on US election systems, though they may have happened. It certainly doesn’t seem like any succeeded.

Also: China and the US need each other as trading partners. Russia is not as vital a trade partner to us.

simplecomplex2• 7 years ago

“Russia tried, succeeded, and continues to do it to the US“?

Source? Which computer system did they break into, and how is it attributed to the Russian government?

Every time in the past when someone says this to me or I search for it online, the “hack” is that US citizens voted for Donald Trump.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_...

Doesn’t show any convincing evidence of hacking into election systems, or what the result of the hack was. At best I can see that people suspect WikiLeaks is connected to Russian intelligence and that the Hillary email leak originated with them, but there’s little evidence to support that. Besides, that’s not hacking any computer systems related to the election.

justinzollars• 7 years ago

First I'm sorry Hillary Clinton lost, I was a 2008 HRC delegate, so it certainly hurts. But China is definitely a greater strategic rival than Russia. Russia's GDP is very small compared with China; in fact China surpassed the US in 2014 by PPP and if their people become just half as productive as you and I - they will become twice our GDP.

I recommend reading more on this subject. one interesting book is "Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?" by Graham Allison. (Recommended by Joe Biden, and Lloyd Blankfein)

https://www.amazon.com/Destined-War-America-Escape-Thucydide...

kortilla2• 7 years ago

They did not hack any election systems. They conducted misinformation campaigns and trolling that helped Trump, but that’s not the same category as directly hacking voting systems.

adventured• 7 years ago

when they have a fraction of the resources and economy as China

You answered your own baffle, it's right there.

You know why the US didn't suffer painful sanctions for its Iraq invasion and debacle (which ~3/4+ of the world was overwhelmingly against)? Because the US-allied world runs the world, mostly, and the US was the world's only superpower both economically and militarily (throw in the global reserve currency for good measure).

China carries an increasingly big stick and a very aggressive attitude that it's their way or else (and they mean it). It's exactly the same reason Muslim countries won't do anything to them or say almost anything to them about Xinjiang; they're afraid of China and they know China does not respond to the normal stimulus / protest that democratic, human-rights-based nations do.

So Russia has the authoritarian, no-human-rights disregard aspect that China has, although to a slightly lesser extent (Putin's dictatorship is nowhere near as powerful or enduring as the CPC party dictatorship). The problem for Russia is that they're economically weak and backwards. They can be easily pushed around and contained economically. Russia is also a regional military power, China is about to be a global military power (certainly within ~20 years). What is Russia going to do, commit suicide by shutting off their energy exports? Are they going to shut down all their vast factories (which don't exist) and hammer the global economy? Are they going to lock down access to their technology & science? Are they going to further restrict their vast consumer market (which doesn't exist)? The best Russia can do is poke Europe with energy, tamper occasionally with the Middle East, and mess with Ukraine. Meanwhile China just went and annexed a country the size of France in Asia - stealing vast territory from numerous other countries through military force - in the South China Sea; nobody did anything to stop it or sanction China for it. Nobody will do anything about it, either. China is in a position now where they are able to play by different rules than everybody else, and there is nothing that anybody can or will do about it. That is going to get worse yet, their military power is nowhere close to peaking, so their projection and aggression will only increase for decades yet.

geowwy• 7 years ago

  > China does not respond to the normal stimulus / protest that democratic, human-rights based nations do.

I wonder how you see them as any different to the US? The US wasn't scrambling to meet the demands of the Occupy Movement.

I guess there was the brutality of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but Tiananmen is the exception in the history of Chinese protests, just like the Kent State Massacre was in the US.

chrischen5• 7 years ago

What is the country China annexed?

dmix• 7 years ago

China probably just didn't see as much value in pushing for such a person (or maybe either), combined with Russia backing a person the media/establishment found so undesirable it naturally draws attention.

Since Trump was clearly hostile to China during the whole thing and continues to be in power, if anything they likely would have pushed for a more mainline establishment person to keep the status quo. Which is the type of thing which doesn't generate nearly as much noise. It's only a problem when it's a problem, otherwise we don't hear 99% of what the NSA et al collects regarding nation state hacking.

Plus most of this stuff regarding Australia sounds like collection for predictive and intelligence analysis purposes, not directly engaging via spending a couple million on FB/Twitter ads.

Additionally tapping into private data feeds purely for collection can't be as easily spun into "hacking the election" headlines.

Otherwise China's "50 cent party" is quite well known from well before any of this election stuff and they seem to be focused mostly on astroturfing Chinese issues. Which again isnt as newsworthy as buying some politically taboo advertisements on Facebook. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

rosege3• 7 years ago

Your mention of China's resources reminded me of an interview the ambassador to China in Australia gave to the TV show Lateline back in 2005. Watching at the time I was just amazed at her blatant lying on things that were so obvious. She was asked about China's vast network of agents in Australia and she claimed: We are a poor country. We have 70 [per cent] people living in rural area. We are very busy, very, very busy working to develop our own country. So these kind of stories is really very absurd.

Pity the video is no longer available - but transcript still is: https://www.abc.net.au/lateline/diplomat-affair-arousing-con...

StreamBright• 7 years ago

That are the claims all of my un-educated peers echo back all the time. China poor, China communist, hahaha. None of them ever visited the country or aware any economical facts. It is kind of funny to see how China succeeds with the strategy Russia used to spread lies about the USSR.

Bendingo2• 7 years ago

"We are a poor country. We have 70 [per cent] people living in rural area. We are very busy, very, very busy working to develop our own country. So these kind of stories is really very absurd."

Which part of that is a blatant lie?

75dvtwin• 7 years ago

It's always baffled me as to why Russia gets so much attention when it comes to election hacking, when they have a fraction of the resources and economy as China.

It is because the organizers of the coup against President Trump, have chosen 'Russia collusion' to be their main subversion story.

So anything that remotely helps that story, validated or not, will be, necessarily, multiplied through the megaphones of the Left's propaganda machines (that includes 'fair' moderators on most public forum).

See subversion tactics described here [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion

cltsang• 7 years ago

I'm not an American, but as far as I could tell Americans grow up learning the history about Russian being the arch-enemy, so Russia hacking is so much easier to digest.

China's is a relatively new threat. On top of that, it could be hard to get a grasp of how hostile China is when the Chinese officials on TV often sound so normal and friendly.

It's similar for the rest of the world

Leary• 7 years ago

Because a preponderance of actual evidence supports the former.

odiroot• 7 years ago

China is a soft power. Or at least softer. They work stealthily.

Russia flexes with nukes, tanks and submarines. As evidenced in Ukraine (Crimea, Donbas) and Georgia.

ghostcluster• 7 years ago

there's a bigger problem with China. due to their incredible economic rise since they implemented market reforms in the late 1970s, so many businesses depend on their market for a substantial fraction of their revenues. thus, fewer people are willing to speak out about their issues.

one reason i'm against biden is the chinese communist party invested 1.5 billion in his son's private equity fund.. https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/the-troubling-reason-why-biden...

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/biden-son-china-business...

AlexCoventry3• 7 years ago

A relevant book: Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36586726-silent-invasion

RachelF• 7 years ago

Interestingly China managed to get the book censored and withdrawn by threatening the original publisher [1].

It was later taken up by an independent publisher.

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/national/free-speech-fears-after-book...

mytailorisrich5• 7 years ago

When people try to paint China as a dangerous expansionist country I just point out that Australia was ruthlessly settled less than 200 years ago by the British, and is under strong US influence.

mhh__2• 7 years ago

Does that matter today? It doesn't forgive the past but people don't dissapear in Britain unless they've been assassinated by Vlad

Paradigma11• 7 years ago

Well, China settled the Xinjiang province less than 300 years ago even more ruthlessly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide

BLKNSLVR4• 7 years ago

Does that actually work in distracting these people from the fact that China is a dangerous expansionist country?

What you say is true, but there's not much we can do about anything that happened 200 years ago. Preventing escalation into a war due to China claiming ownership of busy shipping channels, for example, is something that is probably worthwhile attempting now, rather than pointing to it with a cringe in 2219.

pimmen4• 7 years ago

I don't think it works. I'm Swedish and knew about Australia's history, but since China still has a kidnapped Swede in custody right now for publishing a book in Hong Kong, I'm more afraid of China than Australia.

deogeo• 7 years ago

When someone gets punched in the face, do you also point out that they, too, have wronged others in the past, so they shouldn't put their guard up?

LIV2• 7 years ago

One of our politicians has been caught taking money from a wealthy Chinese business man and another is tied to the propaganda arm of the Chinese government so you can guarantee there's a bunch more of our politicians owned by them that we will never hear about

fps_doug• 7 years ago

Source? If that were the case, what should I even be mad at first? China doing the hacking or our "own people" (I'm not Australian but generally speaking) betraying us? What would be so outrageous is that it's the politicians themselves, not just some IT clerk with a shotty salary they managed to buy.

southerntofu2• 7 years ago

In a capitalist society, politics is all about buying/renting other people. Don't think US/EU diplomats don't buy local politicians elsewhere.

Of course if the commercial negotiation fails, there's always "intelligence" agencies and military to help overthrow that evil government that does not want to sell out. Contrary to our western powers and Russia, China is not doing that just yet.

Can't wait for a true democracy without middlemen selling our resources/interests to other middlemen for private profits. The world would be a much better place imo.

BLKNSLVR4• 7 years ago

Sam Dastyari[0] is the first one, old news, and Gladys Liu[1] is the second one, recent news.

I'm more mad at the politicians whose positions exist for, and salaries are paid by the people they're supposed to represent.

We also have politicians retiring from politics and going straight into the private sector to leverage their inside knowledge of government policy for the purposes of getting the inside track on government contracts[2][3]. There are toothless and poorly enforced laws against this (that I don't think have ever been successfully used)

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-14/sam-dastyari-scandal-...

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-14/gladys-liu-was-part-o...

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-13/christopher-pyne-disc...

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/julie-bishop-defends-...

AFascistWorld• 7 years ago

United Front is not a propaganda arm, it was Mao's main weapon againt the then Nationalist Chinese government, by infiltrating deep in, exploiting it's freedom and rights constitution (and it's why he said "we don't do that (constitution)"), Mao was able to subvert it without going to head-on war.

You can call it soft war.

Xi: "Overseas students are United Front work's new foothold." http://www.zytzb.gov.cn/tzb2010/wxwb/201604/d53a3ab80f1149f7...

treypitt• 7 years ago

Thanks for sharing, though Google Translate leaves something to be desired. I'm interested in how the CPP views overseas students since hearing about a small controversy at a southern US university:

https://vanderbilthustler.com/25557/featured/vpr-deletes-res...

test1025• 7 years ago

China is a threat to democracy

DeonPenny• 7 years ago

yeh, see HK, taiwan, and japan

ratman• 7 years ago

FILE PHOTO: A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him

missosoup• 7 years ago

Every Australian needs to read Silent Invasion - China's influence in Australia[1] and understand how deep CCP influence runs in every walk of life here. We can't begin combatting the threat until a sufficient percentage of the population understands exactly what the threat is and how it works.

[1] https://www.booktopia.com.au/silent-invasion-clive-hamilton/...

ngcc_hk• 7 years ago

Today Hong Kong (look at Cathay) tmr well your country. To say otherwise you are misguided.

HK is really in the frontline of the fight.

Australia concluded China was behind hack on parliament, political parties

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