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Chinese-born Engineer Gets 15 Years in Spying for China
The Los Angeles Times reports on the sentencing of a Chinese-born aerospace engineer who worked in Southern California on charges of spying for China:
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney in Santa Ana imposed a 188-month prison term on Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 73, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Orange.
Carney declared that he could not “put a price tag” on national security and sought to send a signal to China to “stop sending your spies here,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Chung, who worked at Boeing’s Huntington Beach plant, denied being a spy and said he was gathering documents for a book, not for espionage. His attorneys argued that much of the material was already available on the public record.
…Whether loyalty to his homeland or financial gain was Chung’s motive remained unclear. The case is one of a number of prosecutions that have shed light on alleged Chinese efforts to gain access to U.S. technology and research through espionage.
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- February 8, 2010 9:54 PM
Marc Ambinder: How The Hackers Took Google: A Theory
From the Atlantic Magazine:
Fred Chang has a theory about how hackers affiliated with the Chinese government hacked into Google and at least two dozen other major American companies. Chang is a professor of computer science at the University of Texas — so we should listen to him. But he is also the former director of research for the National Security Agency, so he has a pretty good idea of what hackers can do — and whether these things can be picked up by the government or industry.
Chang says he has no inside or special knowledge, but here is his theory: the hack was much more of a sophisticated intelligence operation than many believed. The first step was espionage and data collection.
The second step was the hack itself. Chang believes that the Chinese hackers figured out the identities of the system administrators for various computer networks. Then, the hackers figured out, using publicly availably Facebook data, the social networks that these systems administrators were part of.
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- February 8, 2010 5:56 PM
China Searches for 100 Tonnes of Melamine-tainted Milk
Investigators are searching for 100 tons of milk that’s been tainted with melamine and remains on grocery shelves. From BBC:
Two dairies were shut down at the weekend after they were found to be selling products using the powder, which should have been destroyed.
The melamine had been added to milk to artificially boost protein levels.
China Daily said the Ningxia Tiantian dairy was shut down on Saturday after it was found to have processed and repackaged 170 tonnes of milk powder in its products.
The powder should have been destroyed following the 2008 scandal but had been given to the dairy by another company as debt payment.
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- February 8, 2010 2:15 PM
Still Counting? 27 More Websites Opened in Xinjiang
According to the Far West China blog, 27 more websites have been made accessible to netizens in Xinjiang, bringing the total number to 31:
You might be getting tired of counting new sites being opened in Xinjiang as “news”. I know I am. If, however, you’re waiting for a single day when Xinjiang will suddenly “turn on the internet”, I have some bad news for you.
I believe China is strategically opening small parts of the internet and making headline news out of each event knowing full-well that the international media’s attention span won’t keep up. We’re already getting bored. 27 more sites are opened in Xinjiang today, 50 more next week…who cares?
Meanwhile the flow of information is being strictly controlled and authorities still take the opportunity to declare a state of freedom on the internet.
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- February 7, 2010 10:29 PM
China’s Fast Trains May Offer Tips for U.S.
A new high speed train from Wuhan to Guangzhou goes at speeds up to 217 miles an hour. From USA Today:
The Dec. 26 opening of the high-speed link between south Chinese cities Guangzhou and Wuhan is the latest example of massive state spending to keep China’s economy roaring. The fast-expanding network of high-speed trains is stoking patriotism, too.
“This train is the pride of the Chinese people,” says Hu, 42, the boss of a paper factory, who chose the train over a direct flight home to northeast China.
U.S. companies await the first round of government grants announced by President Obama in his State of the Union address totaling $8 billion to jump-start long-delayed high-speed rail in the USA.
Meanwhile, China enjoys a considerable head-start.
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- February 7, 2010 9:41 PM
China Shuts Down Largest Hacker Training Website
Three members of China’s largest hacker training website have been arrested and the site shut down, according to Reuters:
The “Black Hawk Safety Net” website taught hacking techniques and provided malicious software downloads for its 12,000 members in exchange for a fee, the Wuhan Evening News newspaper reported this weekend, citing police in Huanggang, just east of Wuhan.
Hacking from China has received international attention since Google Inc threatened to quit China last month after a serious hacking attempt originating from China, resulting in the theft of its intellectual property.
China has denied involvement in the hacking episode and said it does not condone hacking.
The website was shut in late November and three of its members arrested on suspicion of criminal activity, the newspaper reported, without saying why the news was only released now.
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- February 7, 2010 9:13 PM
Giant Panda Tai Shan Lands Corporate Sponsorship from Chinese Automaker
To follow-up on yesterday’s farewell to the beloved panda Taishan from the National Zoo in Washington, today he landed in China, and landed a corporate sponsorship. From the Washington Post:
In a deal negotiated over the past few weeks, Sichuan Auto Industry Group agreed to pay a million yuan, or about $150,000, to “adopt” Tai Shan for life.
The beloved giant panda who left the National Zoo on Thursday will still join China’s breeding program and stay under scientists’ care at the government-run Bifengxia Panda Base. But the company will pay for food, medical care and other daily expenses.
It’s unclear what Sichuan Auto gets out of it.
Cao Guodong, the automaker’s deputy general manager, said interest in the panda is related to efforts to develop an electric car to sell in the United States.
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- February 5, 2010 9:28 PM
China is Aiming at America’s Soft Underbelly: the Internet
The Christian Science Monitor interviews Mike McConnell, former director of National Intelligence, the authority over all US intelligence agencies, and of the NSA, which has recently teamed up with Google to probe cyber attacks:
Nathan Gardels: Defense analysts say that 90 percent of the probes and scans of American defense systems as well as commercial computer networks come from China. Is China the chief culprit?
Mike McConnell: I don’t know if it is 90 percent. Probably the best in the world in the cyberrealm are the United States, the Russians, the British, the Israelis, and the French. The next tier is the Chinese, but they are determined to be the best.
We are an open society. A virtual sieve for cyberpenetration…
The Chinese are exploiting our systems for information advantage – looking for the characteristics of a weapons system by a defense contractor or academic research on plasma physics, for example – not in order to destroy data and do damage. But, for now, I believe they are deterred from destroying data both by the need to export to the US and by the need to keep stable currency and stable global markets.
But what happens if we have a war? A capability for information exploitation could quickly be used for information attack to destroy systems on which the US depends. Every nation with advanced technology is exploring options to establish policy and rules for how to use this new capability to wage war.
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- February 5, 2010 3:13 PM
The ‘State Network Information Center’ Wants to Spy on you. Here’s How to Stop Them…
From the LostLaowai blog:
This is a bit sinister: the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has been dropping digital certificates into the computers of everyone in China, which could potentially allow them to snoop on your normally secure ‘https’ web-surfing, such as your online banking and email.
CNNIC’s digital certificate, which is probably in your computer right now, has not been proved to be maliciously spying, but it’s a matter of trust. Do you really trust CNNIC, the overlords of the ‘Great Firewall’, to not be potentially peeking into your email, Facebook, Paypal account or online bank? Nope, thought not.
These digital certificates are not viruses or malware; they’re genuine tools that sites use to encrypt and verify information, and are issued by third-party Certificate Authorities (CA). For this CNNIC certificate to be on your computer, it has taken numerous levels of consent: by the web browser makers (Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and more obscure ones, such as Opera) and by the CA ‘Entrust’, who will have evaluated, accepted and issued CNNIC’s digital certificate.
So, what’s the drama, you ask… Well, in devious hands, these important data snippets can be configured to pry, spy and snoop on your web traffic and private data. A benign digital certificate could turn malicious if remotely reconfigured, so as to tap into a certain users encrypted web data. In one other scenario, CNNIC could possibly use this tool in conjunction with the Great Firewall to tunnel into your encrypted web sessions. And, remember, CNNIC has a history of putting malware on people’s machines, hence all the alarm bells ringing over this tiny, new development.
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- February 4, 2010 9:59 PM
Google Facing Many Risks in China Standoff
Reuters reports on the challenges facing Google since the company announced it would no longer operate a censored search engine in China:
Despite early reports suggesting Google had lifted filters on certain search results, the company insists it has made zero changes to its Chinese search engine and that it remains in dialogue with Beijing. Otherwise, executives have mostly been tight-lipped about the entire affair.
That guarded, restrained approach reflects the thorny legal issues surrounding the situation and the high stakes involved in its standoff with China, the world’s No. 3 economy and largest Internet market by users.
Many analysts believe the Chinese government would have no qualms shutting down an uncensored search engine. But experts on Chinese law warn that Google employees in China could also face prosecution for breaking the law.
China’s detention of four Rio Tinto employees including Australian Stern Hu in July on accusations of illegally obtaining commercial secrets amid contentious iron ore contract negotiations has underscored the risk when business matters cross into politically sensitive areas.
“If they have a lot of personnel in China and they suddenly decide to change what they’re doing in a way that was not permitted by the Chinese government, then that could lead to problems,” said Donald Clarke, a professor of Chinese law at George Washington University Law School, noting Google staff could be at risk of everything from arrest to harassment.
See also “Google Asks Spy Agency for Help With Inquiry Into Cyberattacks” from the New York Times.
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- February 4, 2010 9:48 PM
Beijing Bones up its Cyber-Warfare Capacity
For the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief, Willy Lam writes about the Chinese government’s recent efforts to increase and expand their cyber warfare capabilities:
While matters relating to internal security and intelligence in China are shrouded in secrecy, the broad contours of Beijing’s game plan to augment electronic warfare capacity are clear. In early 2009, party-and-state authorities significantly boosted budgets for recruiting the best Chinese graduates in areas including computers, engineering, mathematics and foreign languages. Research units under the MSS and MPS frequently put advertisements in official and private websites seeking software engineers and specialists in IT security. For instance, the First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, which has a staff of more than 1,200, recently launched a large-scale hiring campaign. Moreover, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States and other countries have, over the past year, taken advantage of the recession in the West to recruit hundreds of Chinese graduates from the best computer science departments in Western universities. These IT talents are frequently offered internationally competitive salaries in addition to bright promotion prospects (Asiasentinel.com, January 22; Apple Daily, January 29).
There is also evidence that agencies under public security and military intelligence are recruiting hackers as software engineers and Net-related security experts. This is despite the MIIT’s statement late last month that China will actively participate in global efforts to combat threats to cyber-security. The ministry spokesman indicated that “China is willing to cooperate with other countries in cracking down on hackers.” Last year, Beijing revised a law that makes hacking a crime, with punishments of up to seven years in jail. Yet, advertisements for accomplished and “reliable” hackers can often be found in China’s recruitment websites. Moreover, there are anecdotes galore within China’s IT community about “patriotic hackers” being hired by military or state security departments (New York Times, February 3; China News Service, January 25; Cnjz.cn [Beijing], November 1, 2009; Guofang.info [Beijing], September 17, 2009). According to a recent report commissioned by the Washington-based U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on China’s digital warfare capacity, Chinese military and state security units have been employing from “elements of China’s hacker community.” The October 2009 report cited a number of “cases of apparent collaboration between more elite individual hackers and the PRC’s civilian security services” [1].
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- February 4, 2010 5:08 PM
A Farewell to Charms: Panda Taishan Returns to China
The hottest news in Washington is not rising tensions between China and the U.S., or even the economy, but the return of the beloved panda Taishan from the National Zoo to China. The Washington Post has special coverage including a visualization of his journey which includes a ride in a FedEx plane painted with his image and a custom-made crate:
The black-and-white bear who was born at the National Zoo at 3:41 a.m. on a Saturday morning in July 2005, departed the zoo just after 9 a.m. in a special crate, aboard a special truck via an undisclosed route for a special flight to the Orient out of Dulles International Airport. Shortly after noon, a plane took off from Dulles Airport with Tai Shan ensconced aboard, ending an unlikely 4 1/2 -year love fest between the hard-boiled nation’s capital and an oddball bear with black ears, a mesmerizing gaze and an appetite for pears.
Born so small and nearly hairless he was nicknamed “Butterstick,” Tai Shan came to fascinate millions of people who saw him in person or via the zoo’s pandacams. He spawned a fan club, panda merchandise, bumper stickers, postage stamps, videos, documentaries, license plates. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty once called him Washington’s most important citizen.
But as the cub grew older and more mature, his days here grew numbered. Although he was born at the National Zoo, he remained the property of China by the terms of the agreement that brought his parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, here 10 years ago.
Giant pandas are native to China and are endangered. Tai Shan is being sent to join a breeding program there to help increase the giant panda population.
Read what Twitterers are saying about the departure of #Taishan.
Taishan has developed his fanatic following. The Washington Post profiles one of them:
And as the sun set in a murky sky, they gathered one last time by the now-vacant outdoor enclosure.
Often, they said, people ask them why they’ve spent so much time there.
“You don’t know why,” Nguyen said. “It’s like a magic.”
“You don’t connect the dots until later on, when you stand back and you look and you say, ‘There I was,’ ” she added. “Going there, to the zoo. By myself. I felt like no one understood me. . . . It’s just been a blessing in my life.”
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- February 4, 2010 2:06 PM
Blogger Describes Xinjiang as an ‘Internet Prison’
Josh of the Far West China blog has written a short piece for the BBC on the current situation with Internet access in Xinjiang, where he lives:
Finally state media hailed the return of Sohu and Sina, two of China’s most popular news portals, but the sites have been completely censored – they are unrecognisable save the logo.
If you access these sites from Xinjiang, there are no adverts, you can’t log on, email or access the forums. The search function is also unavailable, as is the possibility of changing language. The whole layout looks different – we’re behind a firewall within China’s great firewall.
People doing business at an international or even national level have been severely inconvenienced. But most people have resigned themselves to this situation.
People hold out some hope that someday everything will return to the way it was, but the government has given us no timetable.
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- February 4, 2010 1:12 PM
Charles Zhang (张朝阳)：Without Reform There is No Way Out
Charles Zhang (Zhang Chaoyang 张朝阳) is the Founder, Chairman and current CEO of Sohu, China’s second largest Internet portal and the first Chinese-language search engine. Widely recognized as one of China’s Internet pioneers, Zhang has been on the Forbes China Rich List and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Cyber Elite. Born in Xi’an in 1964, Zhang received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before launching the Internet company ITC, which later developed Sohu.
Zhang recently delivered the keynote speech at a media forum in Beijing organized by Sohu. From Reuters:
China will never have its voice heard on the international stage unless the government loosens its tight grip over the media and film industry, the CEO of the country’s No. 2 Internet portal said Wednesday.
Charles Zhang, the often outspoken chief executive of Sohu.com Inc, told a forum in Beijing that plans to create global Chinese media giants were doomed to fail if the government did not relax controls.
CDT has translated portions of his talk below:
I was a student and scholar of physics before age 30. Until now, I have been to many countries, and have been part of many things. I have many thoughts on a lot of subjects. So please let me spend some time to talk about this today.
In Year 2049, many of us who are sitting here today will still be alive, and we will have many children and grandchildren. By that time, will all Chinese be able to live happily and with dignity, and have a lot of face in front of Americans? And will China be respected by the world? This has everything to do with now, with every person. Between now and the happy life in 2049 there are still a lot of barriers; whether we can arrive at the glorious shore critically depends on the choices we make today being wise or stupid. By that time, if the rise of China and wealth becomes a delusion, our descendants will point their fingers at us and say: What has your generation done? How can you be this stupid?
Chinese are the most hardworking people in the world. Confucian culture requires us to be practical, striving forward in life, always moving upstream. With a little opportunity we can make wealth; with few resources we can flourish. Chinese government officials are the most hardworking officials in the world. Chinese society has a much lower tolerance for corruption than Russia, Brazil and India. The thirty years of market reform have given hardworking Chinese opportunities; workers in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta have been working on production lines day and night with low salaries, and our Confucian leaders in every city and region also work day and night, under the competitive pressure of neighboring cities or regions and the pressure of being promoted, leading their subordinates, running on the road of accumulating wealth. The hardworking culture of the Chinese and the marketization of the manufacturing industry created the miracle of “Made in China.” The mid and lower stream of the world’s consumer product chain are almost monopolized by cheap Chinese products. This is the reason for our economic miracle over the last 30 years.
The accomplishment of the last 30 years is tremendous, and we are therefore overwhelmed by the celebratory feeling of this success, we even feel high. Now we cannot stop talking about the rise of the great nation, excitedly (such as the Global Times) collecting any piece of praise from westerners, whom we still worship as our superiors, as if the Middle Kingdom has returned to the ancient glorious order as the center of the world, worshipped by the surrounding countries. This is an illusion! Westerners still do not think too much of us!
In fact, we have only participated in the preliminary round of the economic games. Now we have entered the final game. Our opponent is the most powerful, most advanced country – the United States. If we still keep the current status, then the intellectual thesis is: hardworking Confucian spirit + incomplete market economy vs. individualism + fair and complete market economy. I think the answer is certain and depressing: We have no way to defeat America!
The problem comes from the incomplete market economy. Quality and excellence come from full competition. Innovation comes from fair competition. And the incomplete market economy is interrupting the competition every minute.
… In the field of media, newspapers and television stations within the Chinese system lack meaningful competition, and therefore have no credibility and respect. When the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times point to something, the whole world pays attention, and believes them. Because there is no respectable media organization, China’s global communication power is very weak. The national media team organized by the government to promote China’s brand globally is doomed to fail and has no competitive strength, because they are not a product of market competition.
You may ask, what should we do?
The answer is obvious. Continue the marketization reforms with determination. Without reform there is no way out! Without full and fair market competition, there will be no quality, no excellence, no employment opportunities, no stability, and no real rise of China.
How do we do this practically? The problem is complicated, but the fundamental point is to limit the power of the government and to thoroughly pursue fairness. Only by realizing maximum fairness, can those talented individuals and organizations emerge, and the society can be filled with energy and creativity. Otherwise what we have developed will not be a full market economy, but the power-elite capitalism. The government should drop those actions which take profits from the society, but spend its main energy to protect fair competition.
　　
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- February 4, 2010 12:38 AM
Beijing Air: Better?
Asia Society’s China Green project has posted a slideshow of images of Beijing’s air pollution, which gives a dramatic visualization of good and bad air days in Beijing. After monitoring the air quality for three years, they conclude that there have been minimal improvements. On Twitter, China Green is posting daily comparisons of air quality in Beijing and New York.
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- February 2, 2010 9:55 PM