FBI: We found US MILITARY AIRCRAFT INTEL during raid on alleged Chinese hacker

A Chinese entrepreneur has been arrested for attempting to steal information on the United States' Lockheed F-22 and F-35 aircraft and Boeing's C-17 cargo plane. Su Bin – along with two uncharged Chinese co-conspirators – is alleged to have hacked into Boeing's corporate network as well as those of defence contractors in the …

[hokum]

Good luck with that F35

Feel sorry for the Chinese if they try to copy the F35.

Perhaps the plane was made deliberately crappy so when they clone it a bunch of their pilots get killed.

Maybe next leave the blueprints for a top secret machine gun where the barrel points out toward the operater lying around on a public FTP server.

[Anonymous Coward 101]

Re: Good luck with that F35

The article doesn't mention it, but they have managed to build a working prototype from the information stolen. They have drilled a large hole in the ground and are attempting to fill it up with gold bars!

[asdf]

Re: Good luck with that F35

Yep never ceases to amaze me here in the US how some of those most against our ridiculous national debt on one hand (very reasonable) speak out the other side of their mouth (have too be a tough guy, hoorah give me some of that pork) about spending the 1 to 2 trillion dollars the F35 will cost the tax payer over its lifetime for a total albatross (not so reasonable). Its hard to even justify the F22s insane cost when our enemies largely kill us with RPGs and rigged up artillery shells (IEDs) but at least its a very capable fighting system unlike the F35.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good luck with that F35

I think it's called corporate welfare.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Good luck with that F35

The F22 is supposed to be the capable fighting system which suppresses enemy airpower.

The F35 is supposed to be the cheap swiss army knife which acts as followup and finishes off the stuff on the ground, etc etc

Except it isn't and it won't - and for the stated mission profile it certainly doesn't need stealth.

If it ever goes up against moderately capable opponents flying F15s (or even A4s) the F35 will LOSE.

[asdf]

Re: Good luck with that F35

>They have drilled a large hole in the ground and are attempting to fill it up with gold bars!

I hope their hole is huge because after we buy the initial batch of aircraft we will have spent on the F35 program about what the US gold reserve in total is worth so that all goes in the hole. My guess is before it is all said and done if the insanity goes forward we could spend at 2005 prices all the gold ever found by man on this stupid program.

[Anonymous Dutch Coward]

Re: Good luck with that F35

Don't fear, our country is right behind the US and will support funding this brick in the sky to the fiscal death if need be...

(Sighs)

[joeW]

So

Did the Chinese government actually get their hands on the info, or were these three nabbed before they could exchange the data?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So

I doubt the Chinese needed the help of a solo entrepreneur hacker to get the low-down on the latest US projects.

They probably have that info in real time already.

[CommanderGalaxian]

Re: So

I guess they could have done the same as the Chinese guy who used to work at the same place as me. Just drag and drop endless amounts of functional specs and test documents into an online Chinese portal. When quizzed about it he just said that it was to translate English documents into Chinese so he could better understand them. Management shrugged their shoulders and said - "oh ok then, whatever".

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: So

ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT CHINESE RESTAURANT LEVELS OF DATA GLUTTONY!

[Joey]

I am amazed

That these companies should have such lax security on their servers. Username "admin", Password "password" comes to mind. They should be sued for negligence! Perhaps they should employ said hackers to make their servers hack-proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I am amazed

hack-proof?

Is there such an animal? I very much doubt the hack was as simplistic as you assume

[Gary Riches]

Re: I am amazed

Did you not read the article where the hackers said it was harder than expected to hack in? I'm guessing not.

[seven of five]

Re: I am amazed

"harder than expected"

read:

Pa$$w0rd

seen it all... always worse than expected - or even believed to be possible.

[Dave 126]

Re: How the...

I didn't downvote you, but someone did maybe because you could be read as supporting the OP, which suggested that the 'hackers' merely took advantage of a "username: admin, password: password" type approach, whereas the article states:

using a "prodigious quantity of tools, routes and servers"...

... the internal network was harder to crack than they had anticipated and added that they'd used proxies in countries that were not friendly to the US.

They were further said to have targeted executives at an unnamed US firm and another company involved in weapons control and "electronic warfare systems".

[seven of five]

Re: How the...

Two more downvotes to a legitimate question... yeah, you too.

edit: Thx to Dave for a theory.

[Billa Bong]

Re: How the...

Pointless asking why people down voted something that appears like a sane and worthwhile comment or question. You're dealing with the internet...

Hey, maybe the Chinese down voted you because they didn't appreciate being belittled in their abilities to hack?

[plrndl]

Re: I am amazed

If this data is supposed to be so secret, what is it doing on internet connected servers in the first place?

[Adam 1]

Re: I am amazed

>If this data is supposed to be so secret, what is it doing on internet connected servers in the first place?

Totally agree. If the military wanted to connect their IT assets together into some distributed interconnected network they should invent one.

[Tom 38]

The FBI are also hoping that this latest arrest will lead them closer to apprehending Su Bin's cousin Paste, the man they believe to be behind most recent information disclosures.

\o/

[Clive Galway]

That Su guy has been busy!

The Russians seem to like him as well, they have been naming planes after him for years!

[WarrenG]

Is there a better way to keep a nonsense industry moving along than by opening up your secret data to the world...

[Don Jefe]

Not really.

[Captain DaFt]

"Is there a better way to keep a nonsense industry moving along than by opening up your secret data to the world..."

"Gentlemen, we are at an impasse, after billions spent on research, we are no closer to getting this bird in the air than we were five years ago. Therefore, we're posting the critical plans online so the Chinese can get them, then hopefully, our spies can find out how they fix it!"

[Sanctimonious Prick]

Dude!

I can only upvote you once.

Any down votes can be attributed to GCHQ :D

[Destroy All Monsters]

In emails, the conspirators revealed they have previously targeted Tibetan democracy and independence movements but had shifted crosshairs to military technology.

From soft to hard target. Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they got the right guy...

Not just a sudo su...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well

"Su was also said to have attempted to sell off intelligence to state-owned companies in China for personal profit."

This seems like the most telling element of the story.

[Caesarius]

Timescale

The time from the theft to the time of arrest might lead to security agencies claiming a need to store data for years, so that they can trawl back over it at leisure. But that's a lot of data.

Did they have trouble finding where he was so that they could arrest him? That would be weird. Of course, I could interpret the article as saying that they only gave the location when they were ready with sufficient evidence, but years?!

[Don Jefe]

220MB File

The 220MB F-22 file is useless. All it shows is how to cut F-22 pilots out of the cockpit with a chainsaw when the canopy won't open.

[asdf]

Re: 220MB File

Or how to reboot the flight computer after it crashes when you cross the international date line. Oh wait that's right even that didn't work.

[ItsNotMe]

This is shocking!

At least there is no chance whatsoever that any Chinese military info is in the hands of the US. That would make the US government hypocritical...and what are the chances of that?

[jpvlsmv]

I'm just glad his name wasn't Su Root. Imagine the further damage he could have caused...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that make him an eastern relative of Enoch Root?

[Queasy Rider]

I'm not so sure

...how much is gained hacking into Boeing. Any info on currently operational planes can easily be obtained by bribing foreign maintenance workers with, oh say, an SUV and a date with Miss Beijing 2008.

As for birds still on the drawing boards and not in the air yet, just give them time. Any country that can erect skyscrapers in days and weeks instead of months and years can surely copy a freshly launched military plane (that took decades to get off the ground) in less time than it takes for the U.S. to build a viable fleet of them, once they have the plans. And probably improve on the american design at the same time; they don't send all those chinese students to american colleges for nothing.

[Stevie]

Bah!

Brimey.

[asdf]

credibility problem

Wow I wonder if the Canadians will even give him over. The US has a huge credibility problem with rest of the world post Snowden as well as a bit over a decade ago totally destroying the life of a Chinese decent nuclear scientist with similar allegations that proved false.

[JaitcH]

Another indictment of the futility of all the money wasted by Alexander, Clapper and the NSA

The success is not in the FB framing someone but in the Chinese demonstrating that all the trillions of dollars wasted by Alexander, Clapper and the NSA has achieved little.

The Chinese are also losers - stealing the overpriced F35 info, all of which have been grounded following a fire at Farnborough.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

su bin?

jonathan@Odin:~$ egrep ^bin /etc/passwd

bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin

jonathan@Odin:~$ /usr/sbin/nologin

This account is currently not available.

Ha! My leet system configuration defeats you again, # su bin!

[channel extended]

Jump the gun.

The chinese simply decided not to wait for the data. After all an American company will purchase from the lowest bidder so all they had to do is wait for the 'request for bid' and then put them together.

[Mikel]

Leaks

As much as this classified data is leaking from the military industrial and espionage complex, they may as well arrange for hosting it on Archive.org directly.

[fearnothing]

FBI report is here if anyone's interested. Some very interesting stuff in there.

[Peter 26]

Very interesting, a good read.

Funny they went to all the trouble of setting up proxy servers etc. but then just communicated via email using gmail and hotmail registered in his real name and even linked to his own company... But I suppose the ones doing the hacking in China are safe and don't care about their Canadian living Chinese colleague advising them on the aircraft.

[Basil Fernie]

CO-conspirators?!

Could we have a sub-editor remove this grossly tautologous Americanism please?

[shovelDriver]

What These 'Facts' Show . . .

"These facts show that the C-17 data was ex-filtrated directly from Boeing's computer systems."

Hmm . . .

I believe this shows nothing of the sort. Rather, it shows only that the files on the hacker's computer were arranged to make someone think they came from Boeing.

Alternatively, given the U.S. government's record of duplicity in the info it provides its' citizens, this may show that the government wants us to believe the hackers stole the data. Using past government practices as a guide, one could make a logical assumption that government planted the data, and that it's deliberately inaccurate, being used as a "honeypot".

When dealing with the U.S. government, or indeed any government, including the U.K and its' GCHQ who is partnered and in bed with the NSA, one must always start with the assumption that they are lying, and seek to prove they are not, rather than the other way around.