6 ms·

A Chinese Hacker's Identity Unmasked

82 points by kevbin 14y ago

spqr 14y ago
Judging by the length, article author apparently gets paid by the word.
chaz 14y ago
Print version: http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese... Web version (3 pgs): http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-ha... OT sidenote: why are so many mobile versions so unreadable on web?
jnp 14y ago
This article isn't about the individual unmasking of a hacker, but more about the humanistic element of unintentionally leaving clues about your identity while masquerading online. I'm pointing this out because you're in for a highly anti-climactic read.
- bhauer 14y ago
  Yet, fairly interesting nonetheless.
chnshckr 14y ago
This is racist. If it was a US hacker nobody would care. But ooooooh it's a Chinese hacker. How evil! China soooo evil!
- druiid 14y ago
  Wait, what? How is this racist? If the story said 'All Chinese are hackers', that would be racist. If the story said, which it did, 'A person who lives and works in China for the government spy academy is a hacker', that is not racist. Edit: Trolling troll is a troll. I 'knew' it was a troll account, but looked just now to be sure... created 34 minutes ago :P.
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    Just a comment, you meant "who", not "whom".
    - druiid 14y ago
      Indeed. Thanks for calling out my grammar mistake so early in the morning ;).
  - rikacomet 14y ago
    It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to such a way of journalism. you ask how? Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not working for the government, is of no use. Do I care if the hacker, who hacked my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I don't. But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal acts, like say terrorism. Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a terrorist is a terrorist. But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but not always, say when we experience something similar nearby). In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our mind with. 'American Fraudster''Muslim Terrorist' 'Chinese Hacker' 'Japanese Pedophile' 'Hindu Extremist' Pick a newspaper up some odd day, and you will find a lot of them. PS: Indeed my reasons to call such articles 'slightly racist' are perhaps different for why the original poster said it was 'racist'.
    - druiid 14y ago
      You can make those associations in other contexts and I would fully agree with what you said here. A person can be a terrorist regardless of race, creed, religion, etc. The same for hackers. That said, the article is specifically discussing a Chinese GOV linked hacker, and thus he is a 'Chinese Hacker'. This can be said without being racist. That he's also of Chinese descent is inconsequential. I'm certain our spook operations have people of every race and background as long as they get the job done. If we say that someone was a 'Chinese Hacker' while they're sitting in the NSA office in Norfolk, VA... oh yeah, that's racist.
- dhimes 14y ago
  If it was a US hacker he'd be in jail.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    A US hacker hacking the Chinese? I some how doubt it. Probably be offered a job. US hacker hacking US computers... well, I guess government has to vent its vengeance somewhere if it cant get its mits on foreign hackers. Dont get me wrong, my lot in the UK would do the same. More over, if the Chinese wanted a US citizen extradited for hacking a Chinese computer, do you think the US would hand him or her over to the Chinese? Heh, I even doubt the US would hand a suspected hacker over to an ally like the Brits. Maybe Im wrong. If so, please cite a case. And of course, equally I dont see the Chinese offering up its citizens for US "justice" any time soon. A justice system that many in the US think of as fundamentally broken. All I read here is Chinese bad, West good, while forgetting that none of us have clean hands. If the Chinese had some technology we wanted or needed we'd be hacking their backsides off looking for it. And called patriots for doing so. Lets just stop the moralising and finger pointing, and just get on and play the game. That's all it is. I suppose it fills the space left by the end of the cold war.
    - bediger4000 14y ago
      I'm not sure that someone hacking the Chinese would be offered a job. The case of Shawn Carpenter (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Shawn_Carpenter_and_Sandia_National_Laboratories http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Shawn_Carpenter...) pertains here. He merely got in big trouble, but the CFAA probably could have been brought to bear on him. I don't disagree with you about the moralizing, fingerpointing and games to fill the Cold War void.
- wilfra 14y ago
  Did you read the article? The Chinese government is involved in a vast, systematic and sustained cyber attack against the United States (and many other countries). If the NSA or CIA were doing this, people would be just as interested in reading about one of them being sloppy and getting unmasked.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    You think US agencies aren't? Heh, in the olde days, we had defectors. Now its easier. Same thing though.
    - wilfra 14y ago
      They probably are - and I assure you an exposé about them doing so would hit the top of HN!
qschneier 14y ago
The university this guy works for (The PLA Information Engineering University) has a military background. And in China this means the teachers and many of the students are literally military personnel.
- druiid 14y ago
  Well, it just goes to show what most people know already: That there is a vast campaign by the Chinese government to carry out hacks on foreign (and internal sometimes I bet) targets. Basically, the thing I took away from the article is that it's so wide at this point that no matter the hacker there that you cast your net toward, it probably leads back to the government. In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors (selling what they got for cash or simply stealing cash), or random 'kids' hacking for fun/profit.
  - bediger4000 14y ago
    Is "The Chinese Government" that monolithic? It's a People's Liberation Army university. In many countries (memorably, the Soviet Union) the army was a semi-independent entity, with goals of its own. Is this true in China? If so, why go around decrying "Chinese hacking" when you should decry "PLA Hacking"?
    - qschneier 14y ago
      The ruler in China is a trinity: the government, the army and the communist party. Though with the "economic reform" and the unstoppable information flow with internet, China has become something really weird unlike anyone else in the history. Nobody believes in communism and everybody knows the government is lying all the time and yet just lives with it. Every activity by the government is for money and mostly quick money (for the officials). I don't even think the hackers in this matter care much for the information. They may just try to get more funds from the government. Sometimes they even frame somebody or fake a threats to get the money. The funds will always be granted in such a situation because "if you don't grant you put the country in danger" and "if you grant you can take the commissions". Most of the time every bit of it is simply dirty corrupted business. Many of the officials' children are permanent residents in the US. Some of them are even already citizens.
yozmsn 14y ago
Well guess who just shot to the top of someone's "To be Hacked" list
manten 14y ago
Be honest, the U.S. did for years the same and still do it. The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better. The exient would be more believably if U.S., UK, France ... would stop do the same to their "enemies" and allies
- trotsky 14y ago
  The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better^H^H^H^H^H^H cheaper.
mjmahone17 14y ago
I honestly don't know that the Chinese government is in the wrong here. If we look, historically, every developing country had to steal intellectual "property" in order to compete against the bigger players. Britain did it when they stole Dutch loom technology (and created massive tariffs in order to keep British wool for British industry), the US did it when they coaxed Samuel Slater to illegally bring British mill designs, and South Korea did it as well. While I understand the US's desire to protect their companies' interests, it seems really disingenuous to label a country an enemy for stealing IP. The article quotes Stewart as saying: If they did it fair and square, more power to them. But to cheat at it is wrong. This seems really problematic to me: it's not like all US companies do it "fair and square," and as a sovereign country, it seems like China has every right to summarily ignore IP, or to establish morals that don't care about protecting foreign IP.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Also, who gets to decide what's fair and square? I bet the Chinese have a few thoughts on what's fair and square.
- BasDirks 14y ago
  I think the nation is a worthless idol not worthy of bestowing the right to any such morality, but you make a good argument.
- hexagonc 14y ago
  I don't think we would want to use the disreputable behavior of nations in the past as a model for what is acceptable today. That's why treaties and agreements are made so that we learn from our mistakes. Not playing by the rules that you have agreed to and expect others to adhere to is cheating -- I have no problem with people calling China out on it. It's not like China is unfairly singled out and there isn't plenty of criticism of the US and US companies for bad behavior. Regardless of sovereignty, the Chinese don't have a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to respect theirs.
  - dublinben 14y ago
deeqkah 14y ago
How did this get posted? I Posted this last week. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221484
- greenyoda 14y ago
  The current post is the mobile version of the article you posted, which has a different subdomain in the URL.
berlinbrown 14y ago
Is there anything you can do about chinese hackers. I have a small site and many of the ssh requests come from those hackers. Can I send the list somewhere?
hnriot 14y ago
Just like Tom Clancy's Threat Vector book. Eventually cybercrime will lead to sino-us warfare

82 points by kevbin 14y ago

spqr 14y ago

Judging by the length, article author apparently gets paid by the word.

chaz 14y ago

Print version: http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/97042-a-chinese... Web version (3 pgs): http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-ha... OT sidenote: why are so many mobile versions so unreadable on web?

jnp 14y ago

This article isn't about the individual unmasking of a hacker, but more about the humanistic element of unintentionally leaving clues about your identity while masquerading online. I'm pointing this out because you're in for a highly anti-climactic read.

bhauer 14y ago
Yet, fairly interesting nonetheless.

chnshckr 14y ago

This is racist. If it was a US hacker nobody would care. But ooooooh it's a Chinese hacker. How evil! China soooo evil!

druiid 14y ago
Wait, what? How is this racist? If the story said 'All Chinese are hackers', that would be racist. If the story said, which it did, 'A person who lives and works in China for the government spy academy is a hacker', that is not racist. Edit: Trolling troll is a troll. I 'knew' it was a troll account, but looked just now to be sure... created 34 minutes ago :P.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  Just a comment, you meant "who", not "whom".
  - druiid 14y ago
    Indeed. Thanks for calling out my grammar mistake so early in the morning ;).
- rikacomet 14y ago
  It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to such a way of journalism. you ask how? Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not working for the government, is of no use. Do I care if the hacker, who hacked my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I don't. But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal acts, like say terrorism. Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a terrorist is a terrorist. But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but not always, say when we experience something similar nearby). In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our mind with. 'American Fraudster''Muslim Terrorist' 'Chinese Hacker' 'Japanese Pedophile' 'Hindu Extremist' Pick a newspaper up some odd day, and you will find a lot of them. PS: Indeed my reasons to call such articles 'slightly racist' are perhaps different for why the original poster said it was 'racist'.
  - druiid 14y ago
    You can make those associations in other contexts and I would fully agree with what you said here. A person can be a terrorist regardless of race, creed, religion, etc. The same for hackers. That said, the article is specifically discussing a Chinese GOV linked hacker, and thus he is a 'Chinese Hacker'. This can be said without being racist. That he's also of Chinese descent is inconsequential. I'm certain our spook operations have people of every race and background as long as they get the job done. If we say that someone was a 'Chinese Hacker' while they're sitting in the NSA office in Norfolk, VA... oh yeah, that's racist.
dhimes 14y ago
If it was a US hacker he'd be in jail.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  A US hacker hacking the Chinese? I some how doubt it. Probably be offered a job. US hacker hacking US computers... well, I guess government has to vent its vengeance somewhere if it cant get its mits on foreign hackers. Dont get me wrong, my lot in the UK would do the same. More over, if the Chinese wanted a US citizen extradited for hacking a Chinese computer, do you think the US would hand him or her over to the Chinese? Heh, I even doubt the US would hand a suspected hacker over to an ally like the Brits. Maybe Im wrong. If so, please cite a case. And of course, equally I dont see the Chinese offering up its citizens for US "justice" any time soon. A justice system that many in the US think of as fundamentally broken. All I read here is Chinese bad, West good, while forgetting that none of us have clean hands. If the Chinese had some technology we wanted or needed we'd be hacking their backsides off looking for it. And called patriots for doing so. Lets just stop the moralising and finger pointing, and just get on and play the game. That's all it is. I suppose it fills the space left by the end of the cold war.
  - bediger4000 14y ago
    I'm not sure that someone hacking the Chinese would be offered a job. The case of Shawn Carpenter (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Shawn_Carpenter_and_Sandia_National_Laboratories http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Shawn_Carpenter...) pertains here. He merely got in big trouble, but the CFAA probably could have been brought to bear on him. I don't disagree with you about the moralizing, fingerpointing and games to fill the Cold War void.
wilfra 14y ago
Did you read the article? The Chinese government is involved in a vast, systematic and sustained cyber attack against the United States (and many other countries). If the NSA or CIA were doing this, people would be just as interested in reading about one of them being sloppy and getting unmasked.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  You think US agencies aren't? Heh, in the olde days, we had defectors. Now its easier. Same thing though.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    They probably are - and I assure you an exposé about them doing so would hit the top of HN!

qschneier 14y ago

The university this guy works for (The PLA Information Engineering University) has a military background. And in China this means the teachers and many of the students are literally military personnel.

druiid 14y ago
Well, it just goes to show what most people know already: That there is a vast campaign by the Chinese government to carry out hacks on foreign (and internal sometimes I bet) targets. Basically, the thing I took away from the article is that it's so wide at this point that no matter the hacker there that you cast your net toward, it probably leads back to the government. In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors (selling what they got for cash or simply stealing cash), or random 'kids' hacking for fun/profit.
- bediger4000 14y ago
  Is "The Chinese Government" that monolithic? It's a People's Liberation Army university. In many countries (memorably, the Soviet Union) the army was a semi-independent entity, with goals of its own. Is this true in China? If so, why go around decrying "Chinese hacking" when you should decry "PLA Hacking"?
  - qschneier 14y ago
    The ruler in China is a trinity: the government, the army and the communist party. Though with the "economic reform" and the unstoppable information flow with internet, China has become something really weird unlike anyone else in the history. Nobody believes in communism and everybody knows the government is lying all the time and yet just lives with it. Every activity by the government is for money and mostly quick money (for the officials). I don't even think the hackers in this matter care much for the information. They may just try to get more funds from the government. Sometimes they even frame somebody or fake a threats to get the money. The funds will always be granted in such a situation because "if you don't grant you put the country in danger" and "if you grant you can take the commissions". Most of the time every bit of it is simply dirty corrupted business. Many of the officials' children are permanent residents in the US. Some of them are even already citizens.

yozmsn 14y ago

Well guess who just shot to the top of someone's "To be Hacked" list

manten 14y ago

Be honest, the U.S. did for years the same and still do it. The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better. The exient would be more believably if U.S., UK, France ... would stop do the same to their "enemies" and allies

trotsky 14y ago
The problem is now: there is a other player, do it better^H^H^H^H^H^H cheaper.

mjmahone17 14y ago

I honestly don't know that the Chinese government is in the wrong here. If we look, historically, every developing country had to steal intellectual "property" in order to compete against the bigger players. Britain did it when they stole Dutch loom technology (and created massive tariffs in order to keep British wool for British industry), the US did it when they coaxed Samuel Slater to illegally bring British mill designs, and South Korea did it as well. While I understand the US's desire to protect their companies' interests, it seems really disingenuous to label a country an enemy for stealing IP. The article quotes Stewart as saying: If they did it fair and square, more power to them. But to cheat at it is wrong. This seems really problematic to me: it's not like all US companies do it "fair and square," and as a sovereign country, it seems like China has every right to summarily ignore IP, or to establish morals that don't care about protecting foreign IP.

alan_cx 14y ago
Also, who gets to decide what's fair and square? I bet the Chinese have a few thoughts on what's fair and square.
BasDirks 14y ago
I think the nation is a worthless idol not worthy of bestowing the right to any such morality, but you make a good argument.
hexagonc 14y ago
I don't think we would want to use the disreputable behavior of nations in the past as a model for what is acceptable today. That's why treaties and agreements are made so that we learn from our mistakes. Not playing by the rules that you have agreed to and expect others to adhere to is cheating -- I have no problem with people calling China out on it. It's not like China is unfairly singled out and there isn't plenty of criticism of the US and US companies for bad behavior. Regardless of sovereignty, the Chinese don't have a right to ignore other countries' IP if they want those same countries to respect theirs.
- dublinben 14y ago

deeqkah 14y ago

How did this get posted? I Posted this last week. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221484

greenyoda 14y ago
The current post is the mobile version of the article you posted, which has a different subdomain in the URL.

berlinbrown 14y ago

Is there anything you can do about chinese hackers. I have a small site and many of the ssh requests come from those hackers. Can I send the list somewhere?

hnriot 14y ago

Just like Tom Clancy's Threat Vector book. Eventually cybercrime will lead to sino-us warfare