It's always baffled me as to why Russia gets so much attention when it comes to election hacking, when they have a fraction of the resources and economy as China.
Your mention of China's resources reminded me of an interview the ambassador to China in Australia gave to the TV show Lateline back in 2005. Watching at the time I was just amazed at her blatant lying on things that were so obvious. She was asked about China's vast network of agents in Australia and she claimed: We are a poor country. We have 70 [per cent] people living in rural area. We are very busy, very, very busy working to develop our own country. So these kind of stories is really very absurd.
That are the claims all of my un-educated peers echo back all the time. China poor, China communist, hahaha. None of them ever visited the country or aware any economical facts. It is kind of funny to see how China succeeds with the strategy Russia used to spread lies about the USSR.
> "We are a poor country. We have 70 [per cent] people living in rural area. We are very busy, very, very busy working to develop our own country. So these kind of stories is really very absurd."
Well, this paper [1] suggests that at the time it was closer to 40%. But it seems pedantic to quibble on that, there might be differing definitions of urban/rural. OP was of course implying that blanket denial of any spy activity in Australia is absurd.
Spend some time researching Chinese government espionage. Allocate a bit of that time to reading about corporate espionage, but don't get bogged down there - stories about corporate espionage are usually written by media, not government types.
Do some independent research. If you are surprised by what you learn, don't feel bad. China is a great country with a rich, wonderful history - a few decades of political decisions does not change that. If you're really surprised by what you learn about espionage (and critically, if you and your family are in a safe place), you might want to read about what happened in 89. As you read and do independent research, you'll find lots of things. Some will be good and others will be bad.
There is a lot of truth out there, or at least a lot of strings that you can pull on and unwind to get to the truth. Find some good sources and read as many different points of view as you can. If we share what we know, we can all learn about each other. I'm well aware of the power of spin in western media, so I'm not claiming that my side is right or that any other side is wrong. Just that if we share what we know, we can all learn.
If my reference to 89 confuses you, I would be glad to send you some references in a more private way. If you happen to read things and feel bad, my email address is in my profile. I would be glad to tell you millions of good things about China (or alternately, millions of bad things my own country has done).
I'm not an American, but as far as I could tell Americans grow up learning the history about Russian being the arch-enemy, so Russia hacking is so much easier to digest.
China's is a relatively new threat. On top of that, it could be hard to get a grasp of how hostile China is when the Chinese officials on TV often sound so normal and friendly.
Pretty much and the US and its five eyes allies are the kings of soft power in espionage. Blaming people for hacking them while being the biggest hackers of them all, etc. The West is either oblivious or true believers. But really at the end of the day it's more or less the side that you are on that determines your truth, not the actual truth.
The issue then is that we thought China was on our side, then we discovered that not really they had their own ambitions which do not coincide with ours. And so we're slowing trying to take away as much power as we can from them so we can bring them under control. These pronouncements then are an attack on China's soft power as everyone is doing it anyway all the time.
It seems at the same time China is attempting to establish its own power structure while trying to negotiate with the West, look for instance at the moves it is making with Iran.
You can't build an effective defense in cyber, or we haven't over the past 20 years. It's all offense. One senior three letter agency guy said if cyber were a football match, the score would be 421-420 at the 20min mark. It's all offense, so blaming one side for being the aggressor is a weird point.
Is this the intelligence on the "Cozy Bear" hacker group? Because in a sense that is defence and not offence if you investigate a hacker group, possibly linked with russian intelligence, that is hacking into your own ministries.
You're probably right about the offensive aspect - the member states very often disagree on much simpler issues, I can't imagine them getting their act together on something as controversial.
As for defense, the EU can't do much, sorry. Most interesting things are done at the hardware level. As for software, maybe they could sponsor security code reviews of some critical elements of open source ecosystem and encourage users to use them, but it would work only if these users used these components exclusively which is never going to happen, even in government.
In 2015ish Dan Geer, a prominent cybersecurity expert got up and said in a talk, we don't know if vulnerabilities are sparse in quantity or dense. If they are sparse and there is actually such thing as a system that can be secured by doing the work of patching all the vulns up, then Dan argues that the US should be paying double what everyone else pays for bug bounties, so that the vulns get patched up and anybody who attempts to hide secret vulns will be aware their competitor(s) is going to cash in and be pressured to do so themselves.
If vulnerabilities are dense and there will always be more than we can patch.. well computers are a strange beast.
I mean isn't that in reality of actual usage defensive hacking though?
The US isn't waging aggressive offensive hacking wars against other countries beyond targeting weapons r&d. The same can't be said of Russia, China, etc.
The US does have such capabilities but has been far more restrained in the use of them than its enemies.
> when they have a fraction of the resources and economy as China
You answered your own baffle, it's right there.
You know why the US didn't suffer painful sanctions for its Iraq invasion and debacle (which ~3/4+ of the world was overwhelmingly against)? Because the US-allied world runs the world, mostly, and the US was the world's only superpower both economically and militarily (throw in the global reserve currency for good measure).
China carries an increasingly big stick and a very aggressive attitude that it's their way or else (and they mean it). It's exactly the same reason Muslim countries won't do anything to them or say almost anything to them about Xinjiang; they're afraid of China and they know China does not respond to the normal stimulus / protest that democratic, human-rights-based nations do.
So Russia has the authoritarian, no-human-rights disregard aspect that China has, although to a slightly lesser extent (Putin's dictatorship is nowhere near as powerful or enduring as the CPC party dictatorship). The problem for Russia is that they're economically weak and backwards. They can be easily pushed around and contained economically. Russia is also a regional military power, China is about to be a global military power (certainly within ~20 years). What is Russia going to do, commit suicide by shutting off their energy exports? Are they going to shut down all their vast factories (which don't exist) and hammer the global economy? Are they going to lock down access to their technology & science? Are they going to further restrict their vast consumer market (which doesn't exist)? The best Russia can do is poke Europe with energy, tamper occasionally with the Middle East, and mess with Ukraine. Meanwhile China just went and annexed a country the size of France in Asia - stealing vast territory from numerous other countries through military force - in the South China Sea; nobody did anything to stop it or sanction China for it. Nobody will do anything about it, either. China is in a position now where they are able to play by different rules than everybody else, and there is nothing that anybody can or will do about it. That is going to get worse yet, their military power is nowhere close to peaking, so their projection and aggression will only increase for decades yet.
All of these countries have overlapping territorial claims in the area; portraying the illegitimacy of China's claims as "annexing" "their" territory is misleading when the other claims are just as illegitimate.
It's not like there's a local island population that could object to the occupation, so control effectively belongs to whoever establishes a permanent presence first. It's obviously not an ideal state of affairs, but it also doesn't indicate a propensity of the current Chinese government to invade populated territory any more than for the other countries.
This is untrue, re: «On 12 July 2016, an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled that China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" within its nine-dash line in a case brought by the Philippines»
> All of these countries have overlapping
This is massively disingenuous, because only China is putting military bases next to other countries and then chasing off their fishermen. Locate Mischief Reef on a map, and then tell me China isn’t annexing Phillipine territory with a straight face.
> China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" within its nine-dash line in a case brought by the Philippines
The tribunal did not find that the Philippines had such a legal basis either. Mischief Reef is not in the Philippines' territorial waters, which only extend 12 nautical miles. It is within their exclusive economic zone, which means that China would not be allowed to e.g. drill for oil. But the surface is international waters and no nation has the right to obstruct another's vessels there.
> only China is putting military bases next to other countries
As yorwba pointed out, the inherent bias in your presentation of the facts is emblematic of the very propaganda your opponent, China, employs. If you employ the same tactics to achieve your political goals, are you really any different? What happens when your goals (presumably aligned with American goals), changes to something less justifiable like the Iraq war? If you employ the same tactics then whatever reason you have for the day can be thrown out the window because the real reason is political (it enriches yourself over others).
> China does not respond to the normal stimulus / protest that democratic, human-rights based nations do.
I wonder how you see them as any different to the US? The US wasn't scrambling to meet the demands of the Occupy Movement.
I guess there was the brutality of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but Tiananmen is the exception in the history of Chinese protests, just like the Kent State Massacre was in the US.
Information about Ken State Massacre is widely available [0]
Can you show me an online resource about Tiananmen Square Massacre, in Chinese, that is accessible to Chinese audience?
If it is only an exception in Chinese history, why is it not being mentioned anywhere, let alone discussed? You still don't see the difference?
I think you'd be surprised to learn most Chinese know about the Tiananmen Square protests. It's within living memory and the government has made statements about it which can be found in archives etc.
Most Chinese don't want to talk about it because it's considered a source of national shame. (Westerners often interpret that as them being afraid to talk, but that's not actually true.) They also believe the events are used for foreign propaganda which is not entirely untrue.
So that’s why the CCP blocked all versions of Wikipedia in conjunction with the 30 year anniversary? Because they didn’t want to bother people with shame?
In Germany people have a completely different perspective on the Holocaust. It was horrible and a source of great national shame, but still, never forget. Blocking Wikipedia on Holocaust remembrance day would not happen in Germany.
Tiananmen is an exception? Maybe it’s a stretch to call them protests, but millions of “state enemies” were killed in China over the last 70 years. Cultural revolution, Landlord Purges, etc.
Oh well that's all right then, as long as they learned the lesson about killing millions of their own people. Don't know what the fuss is all about if you ask me!
> Tiananmen is the exception in the history of Chinese protests
Is the Hundred Flowers Campaign also an exception? And the millions of people who were killed during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution? Or the millions of people who have been brainwashed for religious reasons in Xinjiang? Or the thousands of journalists, authors and publishers who have been jailed, sometimes "disappeared", for texts critical of the CCP just during the last two decades?
China probably just didn't see as much value in pushing for such a person (or maybe either), combined with Russia backing a person the media/establishment found so undesirable it naturally draws attention.
Since Trump was clearly hostile to China during the whole thing and continues to be in power, if anything they likely would have pushed for a more mainline establishment person to keep the status quo. Which is the type of thing which doesn't generate nearly as much noise. It's only a problem when it's a problem, otherwise we don't hear 99% of what the NSA et al collects regarding nation state hacking.
Plus most of this stuff regarding Australia sounds like collection for predictive and intelligence analysis purposes, not directly engaging via spending a couple million on FB/Twitter ads.
Additionally tapping into private data feeds purely for collection can't be as easily spun into "hacking the election" headlines.
Otherwise China's "50 cent party" is quite well known from well before any of this election stuff and they seem to be focused mostly on astroturfing Chinese issues. Which again isnt as newsworthy as buying some politically taboo advertisements on Facebook. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
there's a bigger problem with China. due to their incredible economic rise since they implemented market reforms in the late 1970s, so many businesses depend on their market for a substantial fraction of their revenues. thus, fewer people are willing to speak out about their issues.
> It's always baffled me as to why Russia gets so much attention when it comes to election hacking, when they have a fraction of the resources and economy as China.
It is because the organizers of the coup against President Trump, have chosen 'Russia collusion' to be their main subversion story.
So anything that remotely helps that story, validated or not, will be, necessarily, multiplied through the megaphones of the Left's propaganda machines (that includes 'fair' moderators on most public forum).
It’s probably the fact that Russia tried, succeeded, and continues to do it to the US, the most dangerous country in the world. I haven’t heard anything about real-world Chinese attacks on US election systems, though they may have happened. It certainly doesn’t seem like any succeeded.
Also: China and the US need each other as trading partners. Russia is not as vital a trade partner to us.
First I'm sorry Hillary Clinton lost, I was a 2008 HRC delegate, so it certainly hurts. But China is definitely a greater strategic rival than Russia. Russia's GDP is very small compared with China; in fact China surpassed the US in 2014 by PPP and if their people become just half as productive as you and I - they will become twice our GDP.
I recommend reading more on this subject. one interesting book is "Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?" by Graham Allison. (Recommended by Joe Biden, and Lloyd Blankfein)
> China is definitely a greater strategic rival than Russia
I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment. China's "rivalry" with us might translate into acts of aggression, or it might not. It depends on their leadership.
At this point, I've never seen anything to suggest that China is actively trying to destabilize the US, interfere directly with its elections, or incite culture wars. Russia is doing all of these things.
I have seen evidence[1] that countries including China are trying to maintain access to our utilities as a future weapon, but that's not the same as Russia actually attacking us (digitally).
They did not hack any election systems. They conducted misinformation campaigns and trolling that helped Trump, but that’s not the same category as directly hacking voting systems.
Robert Mueller and the US intelligence community disagree with your assessment.
> "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion," Mueller wrote in the 448-page document, which lays out new details about a Kremlin-backed plot that compromised Democrats' computer networks and targeted state and local election offices.[1]
The attacks were inexpensive[2] and affected the vote[3]. I'd call that "successful" by any reasonable definition.
Your comment doesn't really contradict the parent comment. In addition to the misinformation and trolling, they did hack something, namely the DNC and John Podesta's email account. And those attacks were successful and affected the vote – but they did not involve hacking election systems.
Actually, they did separately hack election systems [1], putting them in a position to at least alter voter rolls in some counties (though perhaps not votes). But there is no evidence that they actually altered anything.
If the Russians have figured out inexpensive techniques to turn out votes for the Republicans, would it not make sense for the Democrats to try some of those techniques to get their own turnout up too?
Particularly your [3] - that is a puff piece saying that "we can't measure anything but maybe ...". Did you know the Australian Greens gave a ringing denouncement of Trump in the lead up to the 2016 election? maybe that influenced the election too. Everyone was airing strong opinions about Trump in the lead up to 2016 with a wide range of channels used to communicate them.
US politics is a very popular national sport. Any attempt to 'influence' the election short of actual voter fraud is meaningless. There are too many interest groups.
> the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome
I'm going to go full partisan on this comment from [3]. Them and everyone else who is at risk of being on the receiving end of American aggression. Trump is one of the most peaceful and moderate US presidents in recent history when it comes to international affairs and invading/surging countries full of brown people. He's been pretty consistent in talking down overseas spending on aggression and talking smack on twitter. Great strategy; keep up the good work. More businessmen and less lawyers in American leadership would really be a great thing for the world.
> If the Russians have figured out inexpensive techniques to turn out votes for the Republicans, would it not make sense for the Democrats to try some of those techniques to get their own turnout up too?
The Democratic Party doesn't have the expertise that Russia has, no. I don't think the Republican Party does, either.
I'm not sure where you think I suggested that Russia only interfered to turn up votes for Republicans. I think their interference took many forms, including helping Trump, hurting Clinton, stoking racial outrage among blacks, stoking racial outrage among whites, helping Sanders, and many other angles.
Finally... why didn't you address the claims in the Mueller report? Or do you disagree with Mueller, every other national intelligence figure (including many in Trump's admin), and many senators, all of whom have seen evidence that none of us has seen?
Doesn’t show any convincing evidence of hacking into election systems, or what the result of the hack was. At best I can see that people suspect WikiLeaks is connected to Russian intelligence and that the Hillary email leak originated with them, but there’s little evidence to support that. Besides, that’s not hacking any computer systems related to the election.
Were any details on the mechanisms they used released? The article is paywalled for me, but any article I've read only states that it was "concluded". Like, what attack vector did they use, do all states use common voting machines?
EDIT: Was able to read it, and they don't even suggest any evidence. As usual, we have to take it on faith. Sorry, my faith cup has runneth out.
As usual, lots of downvotes, but no one is physically capable of posting an excerpt of actual substantial, detailed, purely fact-based evidence, but rather only narrative based conspiratorial stories and speculation built on top of some relatively minor facts, that relies heavily on the human mind's ability to invisibly fill in the gaps with "common sense" (aka heuristics) where actual factual information is missing.
>It concluded that while there was no evidence that any votes were changed in actual voting machines, “Russian cyberactors were in a position to delete or change voter data” in the Illinois voter database. The committee found no evidence that they did so.
Would you accept a Special Council investigation leading to indictments and sentences, or a joint investigation by the US intelligence community, as a good enough source?
Of course not. You need physical evidence of some kind or something that the public computer experts can verify themselves isn’t faked for political gain.
