What's happened since Beijing's hacker unit was exposed? Nothing Chinese hacker unit PLA 61398 is hacking US companies harder than ever after bilateral talks between Beijing and Washington were interrupted by Snowden leaks, according to Mandiant boss Kevin Mandia. The hack squad, also known as APT1, was subject to a high profile exposure by the company in February last year. Its state- …
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right. it won't...
You can look at the likelihood of a crime happening based on the risks to the perpetrator (getting caught or harmed in the attempt), the rewards (profit) to the perpetrator, and the costs to implement (difficulty).
Computer crime is almost completely risk free. The rewards can be huge. The only deterrent is the difficulty (cost) to do it. As long as it is as easy as it is...it will be happening.
And...it is getting EASIER and more profitable, and is likely to continue in that trend.
This is different from what the US, UK, and every other country that can afford it, does in what way?
The "five eyes" have a nice little arrangement that works like this. Country 'A' wants to see data that is on the servers of a company in country 'B'. However, their laws, and those of their allies say they cannot simply break into those servers and read the data.
So instead, they go to their ally country 'C' and ask them to break into those servers in country 'B' for them. Country 'C' however takes care not to read the data they pilfer. They then turn it over to country 'A'. Now neither of them have broken their laws (or so they say), but the data has been pilfered and read.
Canada has admitted to slurping Brazilian mining and oil and gas company data at the request of the NSA using the above procedure, and the Americans have admitted to receiving it. Canada simply hid behind the excuse of not knowing (or asking) what the Americans wanted the commercial data for, and the Americans said it was for "national security", and besides they weren't the ones who stole it. Yes, no doubt without that data those dastardly terrorist Brazilians would have terrorized the bottom lines of American mining and oil companies who were competing against them.
It's like when the US Homeland Security were freaking out about the potential for foreign hackers to break into American SCADA systems and trying to get American electric utilities to beef up their security. They even arranged a demo where they wrecked a diesel generator to try to instill a sense of urgency. The utility industry said "WTF?, nobody is going around breaking into SCADA systems, why should we want to spend money on security (as opposed to executive bonuses)?" A few months later, news about Stuxnet leaked out.
Do you want to know what the NSA is up to? It's easy to find out. Just listen to what the Americans are saying the Chinese are up to.
They can't seem to get their stories straight. Instead we get "we want a back door in everything so we can protect the children, and oh, while you're at it make sure you don't let anyone else break into your systems, just us".
Everybody is doing it, and quite frankly the Chinese are the least of my own worries. The only realistic thing we can do is improve our security against *everybody*. So when the "anti-security" police and spy organizations start complaining about how better encryption in phones is going to mean the zombie terrorist peadophiles are going eat our childrens' brains, we should tell them where to stuff their fear mongering.
Let's not pretend that the US is a different sort of nanny state. Here's the attorney general Eric Holder: “When a child is in danger, law enforcement needs to be able to take every legally available step to quickly find and protect the child and to stop those that abuse children. It is worrisome to see companies thwarting our ability to do so."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/30/holder-urges-tech-companies-to-leave-device-backdoors-open-for-police/
Or FBI Director James Comey: "The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened -- even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order -- to me does not make any sense."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/25/james-comey-apple-encryption_n_5882874.html
Or John J. Escalante, chief of detectives for Chicago’s PD: "Apple will become the phone of choice for the pedophile."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/26/the-phone-of-choice-for-the-pedophile/
I've been against all this since the "Patriot Act" was signed back in 2001, and I've been against everything they enacted since! Why? Because I knew it would be turned against us, and was totally unnecessary to keep us safe! Democratic Republics can be SO STUPID! When they turn into fraidy cats! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HOME OF THE BRAVE!!??
/rant off
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