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Earlier today, the NYT posted this:
An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.
“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
What the NYT won’t tell you, Huffington Post will — namely, that Mandiant’s researchers credit Anonymous with providing the big break needed to crack the case:
Security researchers and government officials have long claimed that China is behind a growing number of cyber attacks against American computer networks, a charge that China has repeatedly denied. But Mandiant’s 73-page report was unusual in its level of detail, going so far as to profile the identities of three hackers who are believed to be working for the Chinese military. Mandiant said it was able to find connections between two of those hackers and China’s People’s Liberation Army by relying on public data first revealed by the hacker group Anonymous.
In February 2011, Anonymous gained access to the website rootkit.com — an online forum where hackers and researchers share information about hacking techniques — and published personal data of more than 40,000 registered users online. The data included email and IP addresses.
The breach was one of dozens by Anonymous over the past two years and gained relatively little media attention. But now, two years later, security researchers say the data was valuable in helping them find links between hackers and the Chinese military.
“We are fortunate to have access to the accounts disclosed from rootkit.com,” the Mandiant report said.
You can read the Mandiant report here.
Photo by Gary Lerude under Creative Commons license
16 Comments
That’s really interesting, PW. Maybe it will complicate the Obamite attempt to go after Anonymous.
I’m sure that’s precisely why the NYT article left out the role played by Anonymous.
Right; but on the other hand maybe we’re being naive. The DOJ could probably at least keep the issue of Chinese hackers out of any legal proceedings against Anonymous.
See. We don’t need CISPA or NSA to figure this stuff out. We can save billions right there.
Ever since I’ve been online, for about 13 years now, I’ve tried to keep personal info to a minimum.
Oh, I suppose at first, I was pretty naive, but I’ve grown more shadowy in the last 10 or so years.
After reading this, I am profoundly grateful for my and some of my webmaster’s efforts.
Like, I don’t wanna be on F’ing Facebook or Whois.
I suppose it would be good for my business, but, I suspect, bad for very many other things.
I saw map the other day on someone’s Facebook page showing where their home is for all the world to see.
That, to me is criminally insane in this internet climate. Me, I rather spend face-time than time on Facebook
It looks to me that Anonymous had few, if any, intentions of actually helping the US government…it was help by default.
What some of these people can do is scary as hell.
Be careful out there folks.
Similar situations are being generated at our “hobbyist” blogs.
Chinese Communist Party “8-cent” workers launched attacks on Ping Fu and the book “Bend, Not Break.”
Some of that got sticky.
When CCP Invades The Great Orange Satan
Blogs have low-cost legally untrained helpdesks. Same for most retail commercial shops. Look up the book “Bend, Not Break” at Amazon and you will see hundreds of CCP-paid postings.
Thank you, again! Anonymous!
But who is Anonymous? And which Anonymous figured out the Chinese hacking? I think that there is some sort of Anonymous group who tries to uncover secret stuff, whether from the USA or elsewhere. But some stuff attributed to this shadowy Anonymous may more likely be some secret spooky types from Team USA.
Hard to know without a score card. At any rate, interesting…
China knows lots & lots about the USA bc we have offshored top secret manufacturing & software & hardware development to them. I mean, seriously? Why wouldn’t the Chinese have a lot info/INTEL about Team USA?
Or Team Somebody Else. And secret stuff and actions against US government or business could be Team China under identity Anonymous. Anonymous is anonymous.
Another thing to consider is how many trade secrets Chinese companies associated with the Chinese government have gotten through negotiated business contracts as a condition of get those cheap labor costs.
So Anonymous posting user data info is good?
No that’s bad…
Those evil Chinese! /s Stuxnet comes home to roost.
onitgoes @ #8
why do people think “chinese hackers” are any kind of a threat except as a method to enable CISPA legislation to “legalize” all-you-data-belong-to-us?
the software/hardware computer “infrastructure” was given to China back in ’06(?) when Intel corp built the $8 billion chip manufacturing plant in China. Now every single tv, radio, cellphone, computer and electronic control has Chinese components.
Back in the “olden days,” we worried ’bout “eavesdropping bugs” being planted when our “embassys” were being built by local contractors; now every single bit of electronic hardware/software we have in every domestic, military, governmental and commercial application is purchased from the Chinese and their neighbors.
why do i have the feeling that the Chinese are laughing at the idiots that dismantled their infrastructure and created a “digital economy” that they control.
I think it’s ironic that an action of Anonymous, which the NYT and other mainstream presses have gone out of their way to demonize (not that some Anonymouses haven’t made that task a little easier), is what enabled Mandiant to crack the case.
Remember, the data dump we’re talking about is from February of 2011 and the UglyGorilla information was only a teensy part of it. Somehow I doubt that the PLA did it.
People need to stop thinking of the Chinese as these evil invincible Fu Manchu types who are always twenty-seven steps ahead of the game; if they were, they wouldn’t be frantically trying to wean themselves from coal — and the central government wouldn’t be engaged in titanic battles with local mayors (who don’t want to turn off the coal plants even for a moment) as the glaciers that feed their biggest rivers melt and evaporate.
“Mandiant said it was able to find connections between two of those hackers and China’s People’s Liberation Army by relying on public data first revealed by the hacker group Anonymous.”
Gravitate towards the best “Anonymous,” to take down Chinese hackers? Priceless!
Reminds me of: http://www.navajocodetalkers.org/code_talker_story/
Yes we did screw the Navajo Indians? True heros. Unlikley, anonymous will be given such kudos?
Chinese will eat us after we are gutted, by our own!
You gotta love Anonymous. They go after anybody and everybody. Interesting and recc’d, PW.
“…they wouldn’t be frantically trying to wean themselves from coal ”
Yes, China is investing in solar. Meanwhile America’s Congress seems to coddle and enable a fossil fuel industry rigged with price manipulation, speculation and extracts trillions of dollars, which are then wasted, instead of a return on an investment, solar arrays which are more efficient in harvesting solar radiation, than the efficiency rating of the internal combustion engine? What do the Chinese realize that Congress doesn’t?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency
“Modern gasoline engines have a maximum thermal efficiency of about 25% to 30% when used to power a car. In other words, even when the engine is operating at its point of maximum thermal efficiency, of the total heat energy released by the gasoline consumed, about 70-75% is rejected as heat without being turned into useful work, i.e. turning the crankshaft”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/PVeff%28rev130212%29.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Efficiency
Single p-n junction crystalline silicon devices are now approaching the theoretical limiting power efficiency of 33.7%, noted as the Shockley–Queisser limit in 1961. In the extreme, with an infinite number of layers, the corresponding limit is 86% using concentrated sunlight.[15]
http://iopscience.iop.org/0022-3727/13/5/018/
“The fundamental (detailed balance) limit of the performance of a tandem structure is presented. The model takes into account the fact that a particular cell is not only illuminated by part of the solar irradiance but also by the electroluminescence of other cells of the set. Whereas, under 1 sun irradiance, a single solar cell only converts 30% of the solar energy, a tandem structure of two cells can convert 42%, a tandem structure of three cells can convert 49%, etc. Under the highest possible light concentration, these efficiencies are 40% (one cell), 55% (two cells), 63% (three cells), etc. The model also allows us to predict the ideal efficiency of a stack with an infinite number of solar cells. Such a tandem system can convert 68% of the unconcentrated sunlight, and 86% of the concentrated sunlight.”
The way to obliterate supply side economic commodities manipulation and waste is too?
Too go to the most abundant energy source in the known physical world……
Fuck JP Morgam and his meters……….