[Source: Al-Jazeera, English program, 1st February, 2013]
These days, there is much noise in Western media concerning "China's government hacking the Free World".
As to the New York Times which was after a story that should reveal private income of China's leader Wen JiaBao and his family, there is not much to say. Of course, China's authorities are able to invade certain websites in order to get strategic information from anybody attacking the core of their power. If People's Daily or any other official Chinese paper ever dared to use "investigative journalism" to find out the amount of alleged private earnings of U.S. ex-president Bush senior in the frame of his contacts with the armament industry (Carlyle and the Saudis ...), I could imagine how furiously all those technically skilled specialists and agencies related to the Pentagon would react.
Now, there is the question to what extent Chinese authorities are regularly attacking Western government institutions and high-tech companies in some kind of military hacking. This kind of hacking, however, leads to another question which is that of civil hacking by some Chinese folks who are resembling much those uncivilized guys traditionally haunting the websites of our hemissphere.
In fact, there is much civil hacking in China despite a rigorous control of internet access by China Telecom and state security. Yet, even in China internet security can be outwitted which brought about some special kind of hacker we encountered in a German TV interview already years ago. He said: "When I am breaking through the Great Firewall of China, I always think of doing something in favour of my country. If I can infiltrate the network of Taiwan's defense ministry, maybe the punishment for being caught while tunnelling out of China will be less severe."
China’s Ministry of National Defense recently said, “Chinese laws prohibit any action including hacking that damages Internet security.” It added that “to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyberattacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless.” [Source: New York Times on January 30, 2013].
In the frame of the official Chinese declaration on internet security, I searched some IT platforms in the People's Republic for links to "hacking" and related vocabulary. However, I did not find much except some hints at the security standards of Google OS and the quest for "cheap" copies of Western standard software, altogether rather harmless material as expected before. Compare this with the self-portrayals of some Western hackers who seem to fear no consequences for what they are doing.
Nevertheless, there must be an extensive civil hacking activity that is binding much capacity of China's security authorities. The following quotations are dealing with "China's domestic hacking problem" and have been taken from Chinese web resources. Maybe, all those allegations on "China's military hacking activity" could then turn into a demographic problem of a densely populated nation with steadily rising economic and communications capacities. By now, even the number of Chinese language websites should be surpassing that of English language sites as has been predicted already years ago.
by hackers makes a difference between "invading virus" (left)
and "virus extracting money" (right). The diagram has been
composed by some Chinese "Lucky Star Anti-Virus Center".
Computer Related Crimes in China
公安部侦破最大网站入侵案 30省185家网站被黑
Headline:
An investigation by the Ministry of Public Security broke with the greatest case of website infiltration in 30 provinces on 185 hacked homepages.
假证贩子和电脑黑客联手，185个官方网站被其入侵，范围涵盖30个省、直辖市和自治区。近日，公安部组织在案件线索来源地——揭阳市召开了新闻发布会，宣布近年来公安机关侦破的最大规模入侵政府网站案件。
Dealers of falsified certificates and computer hackers [shook hands] when they invaded official websites in a range effecting about 30 provinces, municipalities [directly under the central government] and autonomous regions. The Ministry of Public Security recently organized the opening of a news release meeting [or: press conference] in Jieyang township presenting sources which delivered clues in that case, thereby announcing the most extensive case of government website infiltration, investigated and [solved] by the public security organization in recent years.
Note: Jieyang township is located in Guangdong province (广东省).
截至本月12日，全国各地共抓获涉案犯罪嫌疑人165名，收缴各类假证书7100多本、假印章1万多枚。
By 12th of this month [i.e. July 2012], the overall number of suspects, seized for being involved in that case of criminal action, reached 165 for any place of the country. More than 7100 fake certificates and more than 10.000 [illegal] seals have been confiscated.
News spread from a public site of Jieyang township
revealing all kinds of confiscated fake certificates.
[Source: XinHua News on July 26, 2012]
黑客团伙5个月入侵70多家政府网站被判刑
A group of hackers, joining for five months to invade more than 70 government websites, has now been sentenced.
The article is mentioning 80-90 youths forming the group's main body. Some of them should have only junior middle school education. 13 group members received prison sentences between one year six months and seven years.
[Source: People's Network quoted by gmw.cn on September 09, 2012]
" We Did It "
揭秘全球黑客组织“匿名者” 多次黑掉美中情局
A secret global hacker organization "The Anonymous Ones" being
exposed for having hacked America's Central Intelligence many times.
黑客团体“匿名者”以攻击山达基教官网成名，又“黑”了美国中央情报局、日本索尼公司和英国《太阳报》网站，在一些网民眼里是叛逆英雄，在各国网络监管部门眼中却是“互联网恐怖组织”，去年更是成为一场声势浩大跨国打击行动的目标。英国《观察家报》寻访一些曝光的“匿名者”成员和研究黑客现象的专家，试图揭开这个号称世界最大黑客团体的神秘面纱。
A hacker group named "The Anonymous Ones" and which became famous for their attack on Scientology's instruction network, also hacked websites of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Japan's company Sony and Britain's daily "The Sun". In the focus of some network people these are heroic rebels, while they are a "terrorist organization of the internet" in the focus of supervizing departments in charge of national networks. Last year they turned, even more, towards goals of transnational hitting activities, great in strength and impetus. Britain's "Observer" tried to locate some exposed members of the "Anonymous Ones" together with specialists involved in research of the "hacker phenomenon" in an attempt to lift the mysterious veil of what claims to be the "world's greatest hacker organization".
Editor's Note: The complete article was published on October 26, 2012, by 环球网, a news network belonging to a media group in the People's Republic of China. The article doesn's include any reference to hacking activity in China.
[February 2, 2013]
Another blogspot related to the subject:
China's Internet People - A Growing PopulationA Brave New World of Internet Security
Above: Professional visitor to "blueprint news" coming from the Philadelphia branch of Lockheed Information Technology Company, a provider of computer related services to U.S. aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colorado. That visitor has been tracked back in order to demonstrate one legal mechanism of verifying an internet address. All data referring to that visitor and regarded as probably sensitive have been deleted from tracking protocols and will not be given away to third parties.
