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by on_ 3910 days ago
Finally. It's refreshing to see US try to drive a stake between the corporate interests and a big monolithic government. This is a country that is spying on economic allies all over the world and callaborates by horse trading secrets to corporate interests. I understand that they can't talk about the length of the list, who is on it or the crimes they comitted, but just knowing they they have a list feels like justice to me, and these hackers will face retribution.

China has to realize that it is hurting the financial position of the entire country and it's own credibility, by funneling secrets to private companies. If the reverse were true in the US, companies funneling secrets to the governement, it would be treason. America has the advantage of complete isolation of the government and corporations, which just isn't possible in a communist nation, so only in the most extreme cases do the two share finances or data.

China approves state sanctioned hacking against their allies and citizens in private companies and it gives them an unfair advantage. If private companies had that sort of clout in the US, you would see laws structured favourably for corporations and they would yield a lot more political influence. China is the kind of country that would commit industrial espionage against private companies it is allied with economically and politically. If it were possible for them to configure Danish and Malaysian servers via network and physical intrusion, they would be able to tactically engineer a super virus that would affect >50% of a whole country, not to mention collatoral damage. It would hurt the companies reputation, jeopardize it's secrets and causing them millions in damages as well as the hundreds of thousands affectd.

The article says:

"Chinese prosecution would entail the United States sharing evidence linking the cyberintrusions to the individuals. And to do so could compromise sensitive information on how the U.S. government tracked the suspects."

THESE ARE HACKERS. We shouldn't be afraid to get a win once in a while. We have to do something and a good first step would be to go to China, and tell them how we caught them breaking into private companies in the US and abroad, and we were able to document these records. They need to know that if they hit a multinational, a data center, resedential citizens, etc. that we are there, we will catch you and we will bring you to justice.

Im glad the US is taking a stand against this. I look forward to watching these hackers face trial, but ultimately, their government and citizens should be ashamed of themselves. It's a shame the Cyber Security bill failed to pass the senate a few months ago, that way organizations would monitor for cyber threat indicators and they would be forced to protect us from these hackers. I think I echo the words of the unnamed source, when I say "Look, here’s these guys. Round them up".

2 comments

"their government and citizens should be ashamed of themselves" Really? Are you ashamed of your government's cyber attacks on other nations? I could just replace the word "China" with "USA" in your comment and everything is still true.
> Really? Are you ashamed of your government's cyber attacks on other nations?

The U.S does minimal hacking and when it does, it's nearly surgical in nature. It's a precise target for a precise reason. This is unlike other countries' hacking (read: China & Russia) where it's indiscriminate and relentless. They hope to steal anything and everything.

The world isn't black & white. It's infinite shades of grey. Believe it or not, one form of hacking can be "less bad" than another form. Regardless, China and Russia's government hacking programs are orders of magnitude larger than the U.S's program.

> I could just replace the word "China" with "USA" in your comment and everything is still true.

No you couldn't. Again, the world isn't black and white and not all crimes are the same. Is a mass murderer and a petty thief the same? They're both criminals, right? If you don't think they're the same, then you begin to understand that the world isn't black and white.

then you would have correctly assessed the satire.
You're becoming my favorite satire poster.