A Chinese Hacker's Identity Unmasked

http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked

by kevbin • 13 years ago

82 45 13 years ago

mobile.businessweek.com

chaz• 13 years ago

Print version: http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese...

Web version (3 pgs): http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-ha...

OT sidenote: why are so many mobile versions so unreadable on web?

jnp• 13 years ago

This article isn't about the individual unmasking of a hacker, but more about the humanistic element of unintentionally leaving clues about your identity while masquerading online.

I'm pointing this out because you're in for a highly anti-climactic read.

bhauer• 13 years ago

Yet, fairly interesting nonetheless.

chnshckr• 13 years ago

This is racist. If it was a US hacker nobody would care. But ooooooh it's a Chinese hacker. How evil! China soooo evil!

druiid5• 13 years ago

Wait, what? How is this racist? If the story said 'All Chinese are hackers', that would be racist. If the story said, which it did, 'A person who lives and works in China for the government spy academy is a hacker', that is not racist.

Edit: Trolling troll is a troll. I 'knew' it was a troll account, but looked just now to be sure... created 34 minutes ago :P.

alanctgardner2• 13 years ago

Just a comment, you meant "who", not "whom".

rikacomet2• 13 years ago

It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to such a way of journalism. you ask how?

Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not working for the government, is of no use. Do I care if the hacker, who hacked my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I don't.

But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal acts, like say terrorism.

Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a terrorist is a terrorist.

But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but not always, say when we experience something similar nearby).

In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our mind with.

'American Fraudster''Muslim Terrorist' 'Chinese Hacker' 'Japanese Pedophile' 'Hindu Extremist'

Pick a newspaper up some odd day, and you will find a lot of them.

PS: Indeed my reasons to call such articles 'slightly racist' are perhaps different for why the original poster said it was 'racist'.

cgh• 13 years ago

It's like HN has never heard of the 50 Cent Army. Guess what, they're here and they aren't trolling.

dhimes• 13 years ago

If it was a US hacker he'd be in jail.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

A US hacker hacking the Chinese? I some how doubt it. Probably be offered a job. US hacker hacking US computers... well, I guess government has to vent its vengeance somewhere if it cant get its mits on foreign hackers. Dont get me wrong, my lot in the UK would do the same.

More over, if the Chinese wanted a US citizen extradited for hacking a Chinese computer, do you think the US would hand him or her over to the Chinese? Heh, I even doubt the US would hand a suspected hacker over to an ally like the Brits. Maybe Im wrong. If so, please cite a case.

And of course, equally I dont see the Chinese offering up its citizens for US "justice" any time soon. A justice system that many in the US think of as fundamentally broken.

All I read here is Chinese bad, West good, while forgetting that none of us have clean hands. If the Chinese had some technology we wanted or needed we'd be hacking their backsides off looking for it. And called patriots for doing so.

Lets just stop the moralising and finger pointing, and just get on and play the game. That's all it is. I suppose it fills the space left by the end of the cold war.

wilfra2• 13 years ago

Did you read the article? The Chinese government is involved in a vast, systematic and sustained cyber attack against the United States (and many other countries).

If the NSA or CIA were doing this, people would be just as interested in reading about one of them being sloppy and getting unmasked.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

You think US agencies aren't? Heh, in the olde days, we had defectors. Now its easier. Same thing though.

qschneier3• 13 years ago

The university this guy works for (The PLA Information Engineering University) has a military background. And in China this means the teachers and many of the students are literally military personnel.

druiid5• 13 years ago

Well, it just goes to show what most people know already: That there is a vast campaign by the Chinese government to carry out hacks on foreign (and internal sometimes I bet) targets.

Basically, the thing I took away from the article is that it's so wide at this point that no matter the hacker there that you cast your net toward, it probably leads back to the government. In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors (selling what they got for cash or simply stealing cash), or random 'kids' hacking for fun/profit.

bediger40002• 13 years ago

Is "The Chinese Government" that monolithic? It's a People's Liberation Army university. In many countries (memorably, the Soviet Union) the army was a semi-independent entity, with goals of its own. Is this true in China? If so, why go around decrying "Chinese hacking" when you should decry "PLA Hacking"?

toyg• 13 years ago

> In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors [...] or random 'kids'

Let's say this hypothesis is true; we should then deduce that the Chinese government is years (decades?) ahead of "developed" countries in terms of information warfare. It's quite a worrying thought.

Let's say that your hypothesis is actually false: this would mean that there is an ongoing similarly-sized info-warfare effort waged by the US government (at least), but we rarely hear about it. Again quite a worrying thought.

manten• 13 years ago

Be honest, the U.S. did for years the same and still do it. The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better. The exient would be more believably if U.S., UK, France ... would stop do the same to their "enemies" and allies

trotsky• 13 years ago

The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better^H^H^H^H^H^H cheaper.

mjmahone17• 13 years ago

I honestly don't know that the Chinese government is in the wrong here. If we look, historically, every developing country had to steal intellectual "property" in order to compete against the bigger players. Britain did it when they stole Dutch loom technology (and created massive tariffs in order to keep British wool for British industry), the US did it when they coaxed Samuel Slater to illegally bring British mill designs, and South Korea did it as well. While I understand the US's desire to protect their companies' interests, it seems really disingenuous to label a country an enemy for stealing IP.

The article quotes Stewart as saying: If they did it fair and square, more power to them. But to cheat at it is wrong.

This seems really problematic to me: it's not like all US companies do it "fair and square," and as a sovereign country, it seems like China has every right to summarily ignore IP, or to establish morals that don't care about protecting foreign IP.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

Also, who gets to decide what's fair and square? I bet the Chinese have a few thoughts on what's fair and square.

BasDirks• 13 years ago

I think the nation is a worthless idol not worthy of bestowing the right to any such morality, but you make a good argument.

hexagonc3• 13 years ago

I don't think we would want to use the disreputable behavior of nations in the past as a model for what is acceptable today. That's why treaties and agreements are made so that we learn from our mistakes. Not playing by the rules that you have agreed to and expect others to adhere to is cheating -- I have no problem with people calling China out on it. It's not like China is unfairly singled out and there isn't plenty of criticism of the US and US companies for bad behavior. Regardless of sovereignty, the Chinese don't have a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to respect theirs.

dublinben• 13 years ago

IP is just a made up way for incumbent producers to squash competition. The Chinese have just as much right to ignore it as every other developing country in history did. Imposing developed standards on developing countries is just pulling the ladder up after ourselves.

rdtsc• 13 years ago

> the Chinese don't have a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to respect theirs.

But that "right" is a "moral right", that us perhaps want to impose on it. Not sure if it is an enforceable law.

If we stick to the moral approach. China might see it as hypocrisy as well. From their point of view they can say "well you stole to improve your industry, you burned coal like it was nobody's business to ramp up your steel mills, now you tell us we have to be green, and waste all this money duplicating R&D effort -- that's not fair, and it is our _right_ to do however we please".

Now practically I don't agree with that, but from a more rational position, I could see their point, as well.

It also seemed rather silly when we make fun of Chinese for stealing our high tech technology (stealth, radar, etc). It would seem pretty irrational and wasteful from their point of view _not_ to spend $100k to bribe some spy and instead do spend $10b developing stuff from scratch.

pepr• 13 years ago

And don't forget Japanese - in the sixties and seventies, they were copying technologies exactly like Chinese do today and everyone was afraid they're going to overrun the whole world.

smsm42• 13 years ago

How breaking into companies' computer and subverting them into serving botnet herders has anything to do with IP? Most of them don't even have a single thing to do with IP. It's like justifying robbery by saying "well, you have big banks in your country so it's ok if we rob you".

lionmind• 13 years ago

The issue here is not reverse-engineering a technology or purchasing it and replicating it. Many people would argue that it's inevitable.

What encompasses IP is not just technology though.

The concern is that there are foreign actors attacking businesses and doing much more than looking at technology. They are looking through financials for current accounts, revenue streams, customer lists, and pending contracts. They are taking the source code from software companies and schematics from hardware companies. They are effectively acquiring all the information necessary to replace those businesses, often without knowing what they have, and selling it higher up the food chain.

This particular actor in the article looks like really low hanging fruit compared to what other companies are warning they are being attacked by.

walshemj• 13 years ago

True but you have to pay the price when caught as Russia did when the uk expelled 140 or so KGB and GRU officers.

deeqkah• 13 years ago

How did this get posted? I Posted this last week.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221484

greenyoda• 13 years ago

The current post is the mobile version of the article you posted, which has a different subdomain in the URL.

berlinbrown• 13 years ago

Is there anything you can do about chinese hackers. I have a small site and many of the ssh requests come from those hackers. Can I send the list somewhere?

hnriot• 13 years ago

Just like Tom Clancy's Threat Vector book. Eventually cybercrime will lead to sino-us warfare

A Chinese Hacker's Identity Unmasked

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