France blames China for hack attacks

Three more western nations have blamed China for an upsurge in hacking attacks against government computers. Germany, the USA and the UK have all become the subject of targeted attacks originating from China, with many observers pointing the finger of blame towards China's Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). France, Australia and …

[Luther Blissett]

Roster

Let us know when Venezuela, Brazil, Norway, South Africa, Iceland, Indonesia, India, etc start complaining, OK?

[Richard Tobin]

What China really wants...

They want to annoy us so much that we block all IP connections from China, thus providing them with their "great firewall" for free.

[Phil Rigby]

Can be seen from outer space?

The Great firewall of China, cool :-)

[Ken Hagan]

What we can be sure of...

...is that the compromised machines being used are in China, probably running pirated copies of Windows, and probably not fully up-to-date with their patches. I wouldn't go further than that.

I have visions of hackers in the US defence establishment popping the Champagne corks to celebrate the fact that they can now wage cyberwar by proxy on any country in the world (even their own) and China gets the bombs sent in retaliation.

Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't block them all =)

I really reckon that we cant block them all - that's why internet was created => to survive in any case...

I would add that I have never heard that Chinese government (or structures for hunting hackers) arrested any hacker who has broken in any systems in the world. I know that there are many arrested people for political decisions.

I hear many news about hackers in USA, but never hear about chinese ones?

why?

that's why it is safe to try to make hack attemp from chinese servers that from USA servers.

And I think that this country is paradise for hackers ( as other countries like Russia - I am from RU). Government makes nothing to catch hackers...

Someday cyber war 1 will begin... =) be ready - go to shop and buy products =)))

[Alan Donaly]

Right

all these countries are pure as the driven snow when it comes to cyberespionage and none of them are trying to use the internet to break into PLA's computing assets so it's totally unprovoked. This stretches credulity to the breaking point they need to shut up.

[Colin Wilson]

First you...

1) Create a "threat" to your country

2) Even if the threat may be from multiple unassociated sources would would just as happily kill each other, not just the "target of electronic terrorism", give it one name like "Al-Qae^V NingPongTing" so even the dumbest merkans think they know who "the enemy" is

3) Declare a "peaceful mission" ("war against terror") to liberate^V invade and steal the resources of this years' target^V terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

Le Samourai

"Earlier this week, Francis Delon, the secretary general of France's National Defence Office etc"

I have to know; is he related to Alain Delon? An actor who, according to the IMDB, "supported Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign", "originally wanted to be a butcher" and, during the 1950s, was a "parachutist with French Marines in Indochina". And was on the front cover of The Smiths' "The Queen is Dead".

Those four facts should not belong to the same man, BUT THEY DO.

[Steve again]

Classified information?

"New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said that "foreign intelligence agencies" had attempted to hack into its systems. "What I can stress is that absolutely no classified information has ever been penetrated by these attacks," She added."

It is unfair to suggest that this is because there ISN'T any classified information in those systems. It is well known that the PLA has been seeking to identify the exact number of sheep on New Zealand pastures for many years.

[Pascal Monett]

@Ashley

And your point is ? Aside from describing a rather interesting life story, what exactly are you trying to undermine ? Alain Delon's reputation - that has nothing to do with the current subject, or, by some obscure relation induced by same name similarities, are you trying to sully Francis Delon by associating him with an actor ?

Frankly, I'd think that his being French would be enough sullying for you.

Also, if you want to shovel dirt around, you could do a bit of research. Alain Delon did not WANT to be a butcher, he studied the subject because his stepfather had a butchery and he was more or less obliged to follow suit. Finally, Alain Delon is a single child, and although he has had quite a few wives and children, none of them are named Francis.

[Mario Leite]

Ridiculous

First, any half-decent "hacker" would be able to cover their tracks. Or are going on bad Hollywood movies?

Second, the US and many of those countries are the biggest employers of hackers.

"Def Con" should be renamed "Recruit a hacker", all the US agencies have in they payroll several hackers and I'm sure they are not just advising them on how to defend.

Do we need to remind the US and friends of Echelon/Carnivore?

[D Crunkilton]

Want to take control of your keyboard

About a year ago, an earlier version of MEPIS (Debian derivitive) would report that a URL wanted to take control of my keyboard and mouse. All I had to do was give permission. This happened often enough that I used reverse DNS to trace this request to China. I conclude that China is a major source of hacking.