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I don't know which is more disturbing here. That the Chinese military is technically competent enough to pull off such a thing. Or that they are incompetent e

I don't know which is more disturbing here. That the Chinese military is technically competent enough to pull off such a thing. Or that they are incompetent enough, to not secure their own back doors and networks, and allowed the FBI, NSA, and other American government organizations, the ability to counter-hack them, and monitor all their internal communications. The truth is somewhere in between. So, this article is basically saying: China got clever, and spied on us. We spied back on them, and we also hacked all of their internal communications too, so basically, we own them. Well, at least America is finally admitting, that they too, actively spy on other countries. And can easily infiltrate any other country that they want.

gkanai 8y ago
> America is finally admitting, that they too, actively spy on other countries. The Snowden revelations made that very clear to all years ago, no?
- matthewwiese 8y ago
  One doesn't even need Snowden to know this. Given even a little reading of the IC's (intelligence community), and more specifically CIA's, history. What else do you think they do all day, if not for spying on other countries? As mercutio2 mentioned in a reply to your same parent, the controversy w/r/t Snowden is domestic spying.
  - freeflight 8y ago
    > As mercutio2 mentioned in a reply to your same parent, the controversy w/r/t Snowden is domestic spying. In the US maybe, but most of the US's supposed "allies", and their citizens, would probably disagree with that interpretation.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
> we also hacked all of their internal communications too my take on the article was that US counterintelligence sort of cobbled together some hacked phone communications with some info from human agents working in or around or near Chinese factories. to say that "we own them" maybe goes too far?
mercutio2 8y ago
The US has never denied that it spies on other countries’ citizens and state apparatus. Every nation does. The only controversy has been about whether the US intelligence community spies on US citizens without warrants, which used to be considered out of bounds, but is now awash in murkiness.
notacoward 8y ago
Not surprising, when you consider that every intelligence agency spends at least 10x more money on offense than defense. I first became aware of this when I worked at a company where we had the NSA "defense" as a customer. We tried and tried to get contacts on the offense, because it was a much bigger market opportunity, but the company went under before we succeeded. So it's our Ferrari offense against their Fiat defense, and vice versa. (Not at all a comment on skills or motivation BTW. There might be an element of having one's pick of a larger talent pool, but mostly it's about resources.) It's practically inevitable that we'll both score lots of points off each other.
freeflight 8y ago
> Or that they are incompetent enough, to not secure their own back doors and networks, and allowed the FBI, NSA, and other American government organizations, the ability to counter-hack them, and monitor all their internal communications. Wait.. did I miss something in the article? The closest thing to that, I remember happening, had the roles reversed [0], and should be an important lesson about not underestimating the opposition. [0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communications-system-helped-blow-cover-chinese-agents-intelligence/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communicati...

gkanai 8y ago

> America is finally admitting, that they too, actively spy on other countries. The Snowden revelations made that very clear to all years ago, no?

matthewwiese 8y ago
One doesn't even need Snowden to know this. Given even a little reading of the IC's (intelligence community), and more specifically CIA's, history. What else do you think they do all day, if not for spying on other countries? As mercutio2 mentioned in a reply to your same parent, the controversy w/r/t Snowden is domestic spying.
- freeflight 8y ago
  > As mercutio2 mentioned in a reply to your same parent, the controversy w/r/t Snowden is domestic spying. In the US maybe, but most of the US's supposed "allies", and their citizens, would probably disagree with that interpretation.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

> we also hacked all of their internal communications too my take on the article was that US counterintelligence sort of cobbled together some hacked phone communications with some info from human agents working in or around or near Chinese factories. to say that "we own them" maybe goes too far?

mercutio2 8y ago

The US has never denied that it spies on other countries’ citizens and state apparatus. Every nation does. The only controversy has been about whether the US intelligence community spies on US citizens without warrants, which used to be considered out of bounds, but is now awash in murkiness.

notacoward 8y ago

Not surprising, when you consider that every intelligence agency spends at least 10x more money on offense than defense. I first became aware of this when I worked at a company where we had the NSA "defense" as a customer. We tried and tried to get contacts on the offense, because it was a much bigger market opportunity, but the company went under before we succeeded. So it's our Ferrari offense against their Fiat defense, and vice versa. (Not at all a comment on skills or motivation BTW. There might be an element of having one's pick of a larger talent pool, but mostly it's about resources.) It's practically inevitable that we'll both score lots of points off each other.

freeflight 8y ago

> Or that they are incompetent enough, to not secure their own back doors and networks, and allowed the FBI, NSA, and other American government organizations, the ability to counter-hack them, and monitor all their internal communications. Wait.. did I miss something in the article? The closest thing to that, I remember happening, had the roles reversed [0], and should be an important lesson about not underestimating the opposition. [0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communications-system-helped-blow-cover-chinese-agents-intelligence/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communicati...