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There is so much doubt in this comment section around the validity of the accusations. We have a number of countries putting forward the knowledge they have mu

There is so much doubt in this comment section around the validity of the accusations. We have a number of countries putting forward the knowledge they have mutually agreed upon. What is shared is known to a high degree of certainty. Any details that are questionable would not have been shared prematurely.

Leparamour 5y ago
China is just the bogeyman of the hour. If it were more politically convenient to blame Russia or Iran you'd suddenly find the same evidence pointing a different way.
- adflux 5y ago
  The bogeyman of the hour which is putting people into concentration camps. Would you say Nazi Germany was the bogeyman of the (then) hour aswell? IMO these are some very valid concerns...
  - curiousgal 5y ago
    Oh please. If the U.S. was so concerned about human rights violations they would stop funding Israel. Sorry dang.
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      They would also stop big bunch of other things.
    - pokot0 5y ago
      The US has too many internal problem to be the world savior. Every time the US looks outside its border, it's for its sole selfish interests. Human rights enforcement around the world is (unfortunately) not something we can reasonaly expect from US. Also the U in US is extremely optimistic. Different states would act completely differently if allowed to. The world need to look for a different hero: any proposal? (For a good laugh, I reccomend watching the excellent "When the Yogurt took over" on Netflix)
      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        Democracy, human rights, and self-determination as a concept should be the hero.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      It's more complicated than that. Few decisions, particularly ones regarding foreign policy, are made on single factors.
    - ycombigator 5y ago
      It's also instituted a very oppressive social credit system and runs an enormous censorship apparatus that it will be increasingly able to turn outwards in the future. Its really about their ability to destroy Western democracy - which is already happening.
- enkid 5y ago
  Russia and Iran do cyberattacks all the time. We have good evidence of these attacks from many sources. Same with China. The idea that these attacks are just being made up or we don't have evidence who executed them is either willfully ignorant (a google search will provide plenty of evidence) or actively malicious.
  - Leparamour 5y ago
    > The idea that these attacks are just being made up or we don't have evidence who executed them is either willfully ignorant (a google search will provide plenty of evidence) or actively malicious. Tools to fake such attribution and evidence were literally part of the leaked NSA/Equation Group toolkit.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      and yet, we were able to accurately attribute the code released in that leak as being developed by NSA.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        We know it was the NSA because of leaked NSA documents that admitted to the affiliation. Not from the tools themselves.
        boston_clone 5y ago
        Interesting; could you share your source on that? I had only previously heard [0] that similarities in the tools were discovered by Kaspersky, not that there were any leaked docs that pointed the finger back at NSA themselves. Are you maybe thinking of PRISM/Wikileaks? [0] - https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/how-o...
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      Sure, and we should be willing to entertain skepticism of specific incidents when justified. The idea that there's no such thing as real attribution, that it's always fabricated based on political convenience, is just unproductive nihilism.
- partiallypro 5y ago
  The CCP runs concentration camps and is actively perpetuating ethnic cleansing. That doesn't seem "of the hour." That ignores CCP doings for the past 30+ years that have cost millions of lives.
throwaway6734 5y ago
It's a combination of native, anti authoritarian populists and Chinese astro turfing
sebiw 5y ago
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." — Dick Cheney, before the US and coalition of the willing invaded Iraq.
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  Not commenting on OP, but you are talking about a single US regime. And Many countries did independently investigate, and refuse help.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    From late 2002 to 2003, it was very much the international consensus that Iraq might have active WMD programs. The Security Council never authorized a war, but they did issue a unanimous resolution declaring that Iraq was in violation of its disarmament obligations and offering "a final opportunity to comply".
  - GordonS 5y ago
    Actually, the US worked to fabricate evidence in collaboration with the UK too. The UK had an expert produce the so called "dodgy dossier", that was used as Blair's justification to follow the US into their illegal war. The media called it out as obvious bullshit, then the guy that produced the report allegedly committed a timely suicide.
    - wyuenho 5y ago
      But the EU didn't join the war.
      - baby 5y ago
        Thanks to France.
      - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
        The EU doesn't ever go to war. Individual EU countries do. The UK, Spain, Italy and a few other EU countries took part in the illegal invasion of Iraq.
throwaway210222 5y ago
> What is shared is known to a high degree of certainty. Not to me, not to you. You're just believing them. My kid believes in Father Xmas "to a high degree of certainty." See also Dick Cheney They could just give us the evidence.
xwolfi 5y ago
I was in France when the US started the Iraq war, now I live in China. Sorry if I doubt lol, it's just impossible to trust them now. And the attacks and humiliations I faced as a French (soft ones, ofc, in the US medias) really didn't help. So no, having a lot of countries saying China bad poopoo together is not enough anymore for me.
wyuenho 5y ago
Refer them to the DOJ indictment and CISA advisory https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-chinese-nationals-working-ministry-state-security-charged-global-computer-intrusion https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-chinese-nationals-workin... https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa21-200a https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa21-200a
omgwtfbbq 5y ago
Chinese astroturfing is rampant on HN. Inb4 toothless spineless mods warning me about this comment. Bought and paid for.
finiteseries 5y ago
The nature of comment sections like this don’t matter in the slightest if anyone is actually worried about it affecting anything, this isn’t copyright reform. Exchange being hacked has 0 relevance to HN commenters, their knowledge, or their influence. Absolutely nobody cares about the technical specifics, or technical effects of this. This is an exec level political issue, and is more related to the recent trade wars than infosec. There is a frankly stupid amount of bipartisan US consensus on confronting China. MENA is being put to simmer. A form of “rapprochement” with Russia is underway, and the EU & NATO are barking when told. The comparisons to the Iraq war are apt in the sense there’s essentially nothing anyone outside those circles can do about this. Bonus points for the fact there’s 0 chance of this going kinetic anytime soon, so no blood, guts, and (non climate) refugees to affect PR going forward.
Leary 5y ago
I would be happy to believe them if they released more technical details. Otherwise, just sounds like a typical "best-guess" based on geopolitical considerations. For example, the NYTimes just published a piece about a "Rogue" section of the Commerce Department that used racial profiling targeting Chinese Americans: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/us/politics/commerce-department-senate-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/us/politics/commerce-depa...
- stevenicr 5y ago
  I don't think they should share more tech details. I recall an incident long ago where it was back and forth - you don't know, we know, you don't have proof, we have proof, share proof - it's all bs.. then the frustrated investigators released a trail of this addy, this pic, which was also used for this and that.. what came of it? not a damn thing changed other than teaching the other side what they needed to not do to not get caught in the same way. If we are not going to put a missile into a building to stop office building 123456 - because of their theft, then keep the proof under wraps. a public statement like this does nothing but make it reasonable for us to continue similar theft - meh. no proof needed for that.
baby 5y ago
Not to say I don’t believe that China is actively attacking networks and services (if they don’t then they’re lagging behind and it’s embarassing), but I can understand the skepticism of grand claims when the latest was that tiktok was impacting national security.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  If you don’t believe Tiktok is a national security threat you are hopelessly naive. MyFitnessPal, Strava, etc are threats to national security and they’re US based, but you think that Tiktok isn’t because someone you don’t like said it is? That’s playground logic.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > If you don’t believe Tiktok is a national security threat you are hopelessly naive. Yeah, it's pretty much a bomb waiting to be used. It might not have been used yet, but that's no reason to claim it's harmless and sleep next to it. Though, Facebook and Twitter are not much better, and only somewhat less exploitable by the same adversary (there's capitalism for you).
  - chalst 5y ago
    Given the goals of the US, anything that weakens US hegemony can be regarded as a national security threat. Naturally, any internationally successful social media technology not under the control of US corporations counts. If you are not American, though, the TikTok drama has been one of the more darkly amusing spectacles.
    - partiallypro 5y ago
      The US isn't the only country that has claimed TikTok is a national security threat though.
    - vxNsr 5y ago
      India disagrees with you but ok.
- 5y ago
tjpnz 5y ago
I'm surprised given how much of it is already in plain sight. Sit down with any security engineer and you're going to hear a bunch of stories about strange network activity they've observed over the years. And this is just the stuff that's been detected.
fuggggff 5y ago
There's NEVER any evidence posted, just "experts agree". In the past they at least trotted out that a "russian IP" or a "Chinese tool" was used ( e.g. the strings command showed Chinese strings in the binary). Evidence so flimsy a computer literate teenager would not be convinced. Now they can't even do that? Sorry but a bunch of politicians agreeing isn't evidence. I have a higher standard.
anthony_romeo 5y ago
Comment sections are not a reliable source of information.

Leparamour 5y ago

China is just the bogeyman of the hour. If it were more politically convenient to blame Russia or Iran you'd suddenly find the same evidence pointing a different way.

adflux 5y ago
The bogeyman of the hour which is putting people into concentration camps. Would you say Nazi Germany was the bogeyman of the (then) hour aswell? IMO these are some very valid concerns...
- curiousgal 5y ago
  Oh please. If the U.S. was so concerned about human rights violations they would stop funding Israel. Sorry dang.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    They would also stop big bunch of other things.
  - pokot0 5y ago
    The US has too many internal problem to be the world savior. Every time the US looks outside its border, it's for its sole selfish interests. Human rights enforcement around the world is (unfortunately) not something we can reasonaly expect from US. Also the U in US is extremely optimistic. Different states would act completely differently if allowed to. The world need to look for a different hero: any proposal? (For a good laugh, I reccomend watching the excellent "When the Yogurt took over" on Netflix)
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Democracy, human rights, and self-determination as a concept should be the hero.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    It's more complicated than that. Few decisions, particularly ones regarding foreign policy, are made on single factors.
  - ycombigator 5y ago
    It's also instituted a very oppressive social credit system and runs an enormous censorship apparatus that it will be increasingly able to turn outwards in the future. Its really about their ability to destroy Western democracy - which is already happening.
enkid 5y ago
Russia and Iran do cyberattacks all the time. We have good evidence of these attacks from many sources. Same with China. The idea that these attacks are just being made up or we don't have evidence who executed them is either willfully ignorant (a google search will provide plenty of evidence) or actively malicious.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  > The idea that these attacks are just being made up or we don't have evidence who executed them is either willfully ignorant (a google search will provide plenty of evidence) or actively malicious. Tools to fake such attribution and evidence were literally part of the leaked NSA/Equation Group toolkit.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    and yet, we were able to accurately attribute the code released in that leak as being developed by NSA.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      We know it was the NSA because of leaked NSA documents that admitted to the affiliation. Not from the tools themselves.
      - boston_clone 5y ago
        Interesting; could you share your source on that? I had only previously heard [0] that similarities in the tools were discovered by Kaspersky, not that there were any leaked docs that pointed the finger back at NSA themselves. Are you maybe thinking of PRISM/Wikileaks? [0] - https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/how-o...
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    Sure, and we should be willing to entertain skepticism of specific incidents when justified. The idea that there's no such thing as real attribution, that it's always fabricated based on political convenience, is just unproductive nihilism.
partiallypro 5y ago
The CCP runs concentration camps and is actively perpetuating ethnic cleansing. That doesn't seem "of the hour." That ignores CCP doings for the past 30+ years that have cost millions of lives.

throwaway6734 5y ago

It's a combination of native, anti authoritarian populists and Chinese astro turfing

sebiw 5y ago

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." — Dick Cheney, before the US and coalition of the willing invaded Iraq.

deregulateMed 5y ago
Not commenting on OP, but you are talking about a single US regime. And Many countries did independently investigate, and refuse help.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  From late 2002 to 2003, it was very much the international consensus that Iraq might have active WMD programs. The Security Council never authorized a war, but they did issue a unanimous resolution declaring that Iraq was in violation of its disarmament obligations and offering "a final opportunity to comply".
- GordonS 5y ago
  Actually, the US worked to fabricate evidence in collaboration with the UK too. The UK had an expert produce the so called "dodgy dossier", that was used as Blair's justification to follow the US into their illegal war. The media called it out as obvious bullshit, then the guy that produced the report allegedly committed a timely suicide.
  - wyuenho 5y ago
    But the EU didn't join the war.
    - baby 5y ago
      Thanks to France.
    - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      The EU doesn't ever go to war. Individual EU countries do. The UK, Spain, Italy and a few other EU countries took part in the illegal invasion of Iraq.

throwaway210222 5y ago

> What is shared is known to a high degree of certainty. Not to me, not to you. You're just believing them. My kid believes in Father Xmas "to a high degree of certainty." See also Dick Cheney They could just give us the evidence.

xwolfi 5y ago

I was in France when the US started the Iraq war, now I live in China. Sorry if I doubt lol, it's just impossible to trust them now. And the attacks and humiliations I faced as a French (soft ones, ofc, in the US medias) really didn't help. So no, having a lot of countries saying China bad poopoo together is not enough anymore for me.

wyuenho 5y ago

Refer them to the DOJ indictment and CISA advisory https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-chinese-nationals-working-ministry-state-security-charged-global-computer-intrusion https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-chinese-nationals-workin... https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa21-200a https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa21-200a

omgwtfbbq 5y ago

Chinese astroturfing is rampant on HN. Inb4 toothless spineless mods warning me about this comment. Bought and paid for.

finiteseries 5y ago

The nature of comment sections like this don’t matter in the slightest if anyone is actually worried about it affecting anything, this isn’t copyright reform. Exchange being hacked has 0 relevance to HN commenters, their knowledge, or their influence. Absolutely nobody cares about the technical specifics, or technical effects of this. This is an exec level political issue, and is more related to the recent trade wars than infosec. There is a frankly stupid amount of bipartisan US consensus on confronting China. MENA is being put to simmer. A form of “rapprochement” with Russia is underway, and the EU & NATO are barking when told. The comparisons to the Iraq war are apt in the sense there’s essentially nothing anyone outside those circles can do about this. Bonus points for the fact there’s 0 chance of this going kinetic anytime soon, so no blood, guts, and (non climate) refugees to affect PR going forward.

Leary 5y ago

I would be happy to believe them if they released more technical details. Otherwise, just sounds like a typical "best-guess" based on geopolitical considerations. For example, the NYTimes just published a piece about a "Rogue" section of the Commerce Department that used racial profiling targeting Chinese Americans: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/us/politics/commerce-department-senate-report.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/us/politics/commerce-depa...

stevenicr 5y ago
I don't think they should share more tech details. I recall an incident long ago where it was back and forth - you don't know, we know, you don't have proof, we have proof, share proof - it's all bs.. then the frustrated investigators released a trail of this addy, this pic, which was also used for this and that.. what came of it? not a damn thing changed other than teaching the other side what they needed to not do to not get caught in the same way. If we are not going to put a missile into a building to stop office building 123456 - because of their theft, then keep the proof under wraps. a public statement like this does nothing but make it reasonable for us to continue similar theft - meh. no proof needed for that.

baby 5y ago

Not to say I don’t believe that China is actively attacking networks and services (if they don’t then they’re lagging behind and it’s embarassing), but I can understand the skepticism of grand claims when the latest was that tiktok was impacting national security.

vxNsr 5y ago
If you don’t believe Tiktok is a national security threat you are hopelessly naive. MyFitnessPal, Strava, etc are threats to national security and they’re US based, but you think that Tiktok isn’t because someone you don’t like said it is? That’s playground logic.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > If you don’t believe Tiktok is a national security threat you are hopelessly naive. Yeah, it's pretty much a bomb waiting to be used. It might not have been used yet, but that's no reason to claim it's harmless and sleep next to it. Though, Facebook and Twitter are not much better, and only somewhat less exploitable by the same adversary (there's capitalism for you).
- chalst 5y ago
  Given the goals of the US, anything that weakens US hegemony can be regarded as a national security threat. Naturally, any internationally successful social media technology not under the control of US corporations counts. If you are not American, though, the TikTok drama has been one of the more darkly amusing spectacles.
  - partiallypro 5y ago
    The US isn't the only country that has claimed TikTok is a national security threat though.
  - vxNsr 5y ago
    India disagrees with you but ok.
5y ago

tjpnz 5y ago

I'm surprised given how much of it is already in plain sight. Sit down with any security engineer and you're going to hear a bunch of stories about strange network activity they've observed over the years. And this is just the stuff that's been detected.

fuggggff 5y ago

There's NEVER any evidence posted, just "experts agree". In the past they at least trotted out that a "russian IP" or a "Chinese tool" was used ( e.g. the strings command showed Chinese strings in the binary). Evidence so flimsy a computer literate teenager would not be convinced. Now they can't even do that? Sorry but a bunch of politicians agreeing isn't evidence. I have a higher standard.

anthony_romeo 5y ago

Comment sections are not a reliable source of information.