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It's ironic that when the Chinese attack against Google occurred, we thought the Chinese government was the most hostile state actor threat to worry about, but
by cromwellian 13y ago
It's ironic that when the Chinese attack against Google occurred, we thought the Chinese government was the most hostile state actor threat to worry about, but it turned out to be the US and UK government.
- repnescasb 13y agono, YOU thought of China as terribly hostile. We in Europe know the deal for a very long time. It's not like there was no cold war and vietnam war and irak war and....
- babar 13y agoWhy do people assume the Chinese government is not able to use similar techniques?
- wmf 13y agoI would assume they use similar techniques within China and perhaps allied countries like North Korea and Cuba, but the US is performing wiretapping in at least the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Also, how much non-Chinese Internet traffic passes through China?
- maaku 13y ago> and perhaps allied countries like North Korea and Cuba Nobody is more distrusting of each other than two communist countries.
- kika 13y agoWell, when you eat off the hand of the other country you don't have much choice. Nobody actually asks you if you trust or not.
- nzp 13y agoDisregarding for a moment that a state can not be communist (one defining characteristic of communism being absence of state), only socialist, North Korea has long disassociated itself from communism. Since the 90s at least there has been a systematic removal of any mention of Marxism, communism and related terminology from the constitution, laws and official discourse.
- boyaka 13y agohttp://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/ http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/ I'm sure lots of botnets use China servers as well.
- pavs 13y agoMore importantly, whats the difference between Chinese and American government when it comes to privacy?
- coldtea 13y agoThat the US intervenes domestically and in Europe, L. America, Middle East, etc, whereas China is mostly concerned with itself.
- tedunangst 13y agoThe terrible things the Chinese government does aren't being done to you.
- kyllo 13y agoThose things aren't being done to most Chinese people, either. And they are being done to some Americans now, and increasingly so.
- Qantourisc 13y agoThe Chinese are honest about it !
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tantalor 13y agoThe Chinese were targeting specific journalists and critics. Presumably to harass them. I'm not saying the US doesn't do that, but the evidence is not as clear.
- samstave 13y agoMaybe you didn't notice the detainment of Greenwald's partner by the GCHQ whereby they demanded him to turn-over/destroy whatever he had. Further, the break-in to Greenwald's residence and theft of his machine. As well as the visit to the Guardian and destrution of machines.... The evidence is crystal.
- vidarh 13y agoAs much as the UK government would probably love being confused for the US government, at least the visit to the Guardian and detainment of Miranda were both done by the UK. And given how the UK government loves nothing more than to be the lapdog of the US, I have no doubts it was done entirely voluntarily. Eagerly even, as an opportunity to show off just how extra exceedingly loyal minions they are. Frankly, I have little doubt that the UK government participates so eagerly that just occasionally some of their US counterparts must be a little bit embarrassed on their behalf over seeing their total lack of self respect in trying to impress.
- alandarev 13y agoExactly my thought. Making me embarrassed to a singel fact that I live in UK, as that happened.
- XorNot 13y agoExcept you know, in that case the person actually did have classified documents of an allied nation on a thumbdrive on them. Which you know - is still illegal to have. Though it's funny how the Guardian thoroughly underreported that fact.
- simoncion 13y ago
- grey-area 13y agoChina doesn't have agreements with BT, AT&T etc which allow it to tap fibre in our countries at will. I'm sure they try some tapping, but they can't do it on the scale that GCHQ and the NSA have been outside China.
- Spooky23 13y agoHow do you know that?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ojbyrne 13y agoBut they could easily have agreements with every chip fab to build back doors into every piece of networking equipment.
- babesh 13y agoSo can the US.
- ekianjo 13y agoThat's very unlikely nobody would have noticed them by now, if it were the case.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bhrgunatha 13y agoDo you mean - as unlikely as not spotting the weakening of encryption standards - for example by another branch of the same government (NIST/NSA)?
- astrange 13y agoThose were spotted.
- logicallee 13y agoBecause they have hundreds of their employees doing shifts of skript kiddie hacking over the open Internet. That is why "people assume the Chinese government is not able to use similar techniques."
- atmosx 13y agoWhy on Earth are you comparing a suppressive regime to the a western democracy? Of course the Chinese gov is able to do so without any repercussions. The difference should be that in a democracy you can't abuse your power without repercussions.
- zurn 13y agoMaybe it "should" but democracy and domestic popular opinion doesn't traditionally have a significant impact on US foreign policy. Except for big wars.
- eyeareque 13y ago<i>"The difference should be that in a democracy you can't abuse your power without repercussions."</i> Do you see the irony? Western governments are abusing their powers.. and they are getting away with it. Democracy means nothing if the government doesn't hold itself accountable.
- dragonwriter 13y agoNo, democracy means nothing if the people don't hold the government accountable. Relying on the government to hold itself accountable makes democracy no different from monarchy.
- eyeareque 13y agoRight, but as long as cable tv works and fast food restaurants are open the mass majority of people won't do anything about it.
- gadders 13y agoOn the whole, I think I'd rather be spied on by an ally rather than a dictatorship.
- FridayWithJohn 13y agoCompletely disagree with that. That is like saying you would prefer to have your own brother punch you in your face than a stranger. It hurts a lot more because you are meant to look out for each other, not distrust and stab each others back.
- gadders 13y agoWell I trust what the US does with the information more than China. It's like Tiannamen Square never happened.
- mverwijs 13y agoYou trust the US of today. That is your right and well, that is fine. But who is to speak for tomorrow? None of us can tell what the future brings. Not me and not you. So who is to say that in ten years, when that data is still there, that the US is still worthy of your trust? It is the future we should distrust, even if you trust the past, and the present.
- gadders 13y agoA fair point. Distrust of governments is a healthy position to have.
- jeltz 13y agoTiannamen Square is believed to greatly affected Chinese politics, mostly for the better. They do not like talking about it but they have done much to prevent something like that from happening again.
- nl 13y agoI live in a "Western", English speaking democracy, with friendly relations with both the US and China. Our biggest trading partner is China, and we have a free-trade agreement with the US. Who exactly is our ally again?
- tokenadult 13y agoChina is a much more hostile state actor in how it would use any information it gathers up, especially to a free-enterprise company like Google.
- eliasmacpherson 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial_espionage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial... Airbus might disagree with you there, I can't see the NSA ratting Boeing out for supplying bribes.
- anologwintermut 13y agoIronically, at the time it would appear that the NSA was probably prohibited from spying on at least US-based Boing personnel. In fact, even today, they claim they'd be prohibited from looking at it(though not collecting it or analyzing meta data which is the whole problem) at least as far as the people involved are US Persons.
- eliasmacpherson 13y agoI think I see what you are getting at, but surely a trade with a foreign nation like Saudi Arabia - because the Saudi's are foreign, the NSA would have always had the remit to spy on the transaction?
- forgotAgain 13y agoI used to think much the same. These days however the unchecked secret security apparatus of the United States is a sword over the necks of it's citizens' freedom.
- drzaiusapelord 13y agoThat's quite a claim. Right now the NSA holds privileged information for millions of Americans. What happens if one of those people becomes some populist political entity. It would be trivial for the NSA to leak dirt of any kind (sexual fetishes, hangups, private emails to wife, other private things that when taken to the public would look bad, trash talking others, etc) to help discredit this person. Imagine that this person ran on a platform for cutting down the NSA or reforming the intelligence agencies. How "protected" do you think this "metadata" would be? The Chinese wouldn't do that to me. They don't have a dog in this fight.
- bocalogic 13y agoNo way! Do you think 9/11 could have been an inside job? :-)
- basch 13y agoWhy did the US jump in priority. Just because it is a problem doesn't mean it is a bigger problem. I think US journalism is causing us to misprioritize. Everyone is talking about the NSA so everyone assumes it's the biggest problem. http://mag.newsweek.com/2013/11/01/edward-snowden-escalated-cyber-war.html http://mag.newsweek.com/2013/11/01/edward-snowden-escalated-...
- zurn 13y agoI wonder why people aren't using calling the current unpleaseantness attacks (or war).
- snowwrestler 13y agoThe use of equivalent technology does not imply equivalent outcomes or moral standing. At a minimum the U.S. and UK spying needs to be balanced against the fact that U.S. and UK citizens invented the core technologies of the Internet, and gave them to the world for free.