China's 5-Year Cyberwar Met With Western Silence 185
jfruhlinger writes "McAfee yesterday outlined what it calls Operation Shady RAT, a five-year campaign of cyberespionage launched by a national government against international organizations and private corporations. That government was almost certainly China's, so the question becomes: why are the Western nations silent about it? One fact revealed by the raids is that, predictions of cyberpunk novels nonwithstanding, private companies are still quite weak in the face of national governments — and it's those national governments that must act against such intrusions."
McAfee Has A History... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well... Nobody knows who's behind this. The Chinese government might be our best bet, but I don't expect all western countries to shout at them over a wild suspicion.
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The list of suspects that could pull this kind of operations is pretty small: US, Russia, China and maybe Israel and of those China and Russia are the most credible. But I don't expect anyone to make a fuss even if it was known. At that level, that's all hush-hush diplomacy.
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Well, from my understanding of "Operation Shady RAT", they found out which organizations/gov'ts were targeted by taking over/siezing one of the info-collection and zombie-controlling computers. Much of the speculation that it was China is based on the fact that the hackings targeted the US, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, etc...
For all we know, it could be North Korea or the US doing it. The fact that the controlling computer indicates only those targets could be a frame in case they get caught. I wouldn't be
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It depends on their product. I've used McAfee on AIX, Linux, and Solaris for a long while, and it has been very well behaved.
The reason I've had to put it on these platforms is not that the Solaris cluster running the Oracle transactions is going to get nailed by a virus, but to make the bean counters happy. A lot of business contracts have stipulations requiring machines to have antivirus software on them, and checking this box off can mean a successful deal or a no go.
As for McAfee on Windows, the lates
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1. Locks on doors cause more problems for users than they solve, if they are not implemented well. But you need locks on some doors, or everything on the other side is gone in 60 seconds.
2. Today it's McAfee. Tomorrow Symantec. Trend Micro. Sophos. They all are awful to someone. Why on earth do you stick with them? Oh, because there are no clearly better alternatives? Actually, I feel your pain, I used to do that also. There is no solution. This stuff is complex and will never be excellent.
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Big = Safe! (Score:5, Insightful)
LulzSec / Variants copy some email addresses - GET TEH TERRORISTS!!!
China wages a 5 year espionage capaign against multiple targets:
((Crickets))
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Ok, first, since when did the "we speculate that the Chinese government might have been involved" become "its almost definitely the Chinese"? Yeah, sure, it's likely China, but do we really have any evidence at this point? Hell, for all we know it could be our own governments (that'd certainly explain the silence).
And secondly, if it is the Chinese, chances are the US government has its own program that they've been pursuing for quite some time, and calling out China for its actions would, if they call us
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Re:it's likely China (Score:2)
I'll leave it to my tech betters to do the chops on things like Chinese ip addresses vs proxies vs Chinese Govt involvement. To get the kids from Lulzsec we called four countries worth of law officials and picked up the ... likely ... middleman.
If the Chinese Government spent *five years* attacking targets, I think we'd notice - now reporting it is something else again, and there are Onion Layers of partially correct news here, but to play the "no evidence" card is a little thin - after McAfee put themselve
See, it wasn't me! (Score:2)
Honest, boss, I wasn't on goat.sx it was a one-armed Chinese man with an eye-patch!
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, gang.
I would think the answer is obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I would think the answer is obvious... (Score:4, Informative)
No, sheesh, the West's combine economic output drawfs China's. They are, without a doubt, large, but they are not the largest economy in the world; they have the third largest, even then they aren't close. By most standards the US or EU GDP is nearly 3 times as high as China's. If China were to move forward and start paying their workers better they would move even further back. They can only sustain their growth as it is now by repressing their population and keeping them isolated. In this age that possibility is quickly eroding.
Quit watching the news and do some real research.
I don't think "GDP" covers it (Score:2)
For a nice visual, try
http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/china-vs-united-states-a-visual-comparison/ [mint.com]
As you can see, China is bigger with manufacturing, US is bigger with services; China doesn't have the debt, or the excesses in the stock market. China has cash, and gold reserves. China doesn't have external debt. China exports more than it imports.
About the ONLY metric that China falls behind in is GDP -- which, from the other indicators is simply being propped up by... China.
(Oh, and the US has more energy re
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Re:I would think the answer is obvious... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or, it's just possible that we've known about this all along, and security concerns prevent us from discussing it openly.
In this case, the security concerns might be preventing the Chinese (or whomever) from knowing just how much we know. Think of Coventry in cyberspace....
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Because, financially, China has the West (especially the US) by the balls and everybody knows it. "If you're unhappy about our alleged cyberespionage, then you'll be even more unhappy when we buy fewer bonds or make fewer investments in your country."
You don't kill your cows because the people stop buying milk. If they did that, and somehow managed to make our economy collapse (or at least fall further into recession) they would land a major blow to their own economy as well. Where do you thing the burgeoning middle class in China is coming from? It is being funded by us, through our buying of Chinese manufactured goods. China does not have another market as large as the US. They are hoping to eventually have a large enough internal consumer base f
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Not only that, China buys U.S. Treasuries to prop up the dollar. If the dollar drops, then the U.S. cannot afford as many Chinese goods. Also, they've pegged their currency to the dollar. They then have to distort their own economy by driving down their own currency if the dollar drops and suddenly the newly minted rich Chinese have one less reason to respect a corrupt and dysfunctional political system.
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This report is stating that some of China's growth is in fact fake. Interesting read.
http://consumerist.com/2011/07/chinas-hypergrowth-fueled-by-building-giant-cities-no-one-lives-in.html [consumerist.com]
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The way a lot of modern construction is done in the west, there's lots of reasons to not build cities no one lives in yet, but I wonder if there's any percentage in building "spare" cities like this for some undefined future use.
The living and commercial spaces are priced high enough that the space is nearly empty, but a few people/entities are given cut-rate access to keep it minimally occupied to keep key systems working (water? power?) and maintained.
At some point in the future (10 years? 20?) when the c
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I agree with your premise that China would hurt itself as much as it hurts us if they try to screw with their T-bond holdings. A default would be extreme. If the Chinese wanted to "teach us a lesson" they could dump a bunch of treasuries on the market. This would cause bond prices to go down, interest rates to go up, and if they dumped enough bonds, the dollar would also drop. In order for them to really make a painful impact, they would need to sell a lot of bonds into a market that's already depressed by
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I think you have the tail and the dog confused here on the bond-buying issue. China buying fewer US bonds is something the US has been asking for for years. It's also known as allowing the yuan to appreciate against the dollar.
This would be a very good thing for the US economy in general, I suspect.
China doesn't not have the US "by the balls" (Score:2)
Because, financially, China has the West (especially the US) by the balls and everybody knows it.
How exactly do you figure that? Sure China sells a lot of merchandise in the US but that means they are exactly as dependent on the US as the US is on them. In fact if anything China is more dependent on the US because it's not like there are a lot of other markets the size of the US market. The old maxim goes that if you own the bank $1000 and can't pay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $1 million and can't pay, the bank has a problem. Same thing applies here except the number is roughly $1 tri
Governments are acting, just ineffectively. (Score:2)
Why would retaliation be public (Score:5, Interesting)
Different forms of retaliation (Score:4, Insightful)
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Even so, why NOW of all times? This has allegedly been going on for five years. Many big-name companies have been hacked, no doubt including Sony. Why hide it and now suddenly decide to announce it?
Are they prepping us for some big announcement or trying to get any particular legislation passed? Reminds me of the timely news of Bin Laden's death, just a couple of days before the Patriot Act extension was to be signed. Tinfoil hat, therefore all arguments are irrelevant..
The government has made no such announcement. McAfee has. But I would assume that the government has known and keeps track of any systematic attack. Just like any counterespionage case, once you detect something, if it's not a vitally pressing issue that could cause major damage, you let it go. You watch it, track it, see if it leads you anywhere; either back to the source, or possibly alert you of other clandestine operations. If an operation has been compromised, the last thing you want to do is let
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As long as the West thinks they have the upper hand in cyber skills, it's kind of like the cat letting the mouse run around in the kitchen: study his moves - learn from what he's showing you he can do, and why kill him? He's not really eating that much, yet. Presumably, as long as the losses are trivial, policy will continue to be to study the attacks and develop counters, rather than crying foul and threatening open retaliation.
And, if the mice have a few of generations of children, that's hundreds of ta
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so if someone in the US where to hack china what w (Score:2)
so if someone in the US where to hack china what will happen?
Or is the west saying it's a free for all?
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so if someone in the US where to hack china what will happen?
I suppose that depends were in china they hack. Their probably not going to hack Chinese government wear there going to notice. That was harder to right than it is for you all to reed.
No chance. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hypocrisy, maybe? (Score:2)
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But those are the bad guys. You're supposed to root for the government that is in your location. It's very important that the people be distracted by the idea that some foreign actor may do them some harm so that they do not realize that it is in fact their own state that is not only failing to act in the interest of the majority of citizens, but openly acting against them (cutting SS and Medicare in order to solve the fabricated debt crisis, for a recent example).
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Yes, but without proof you are just talking out of your ass. Stop it.
Chinese students (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to work at a fairly large mid-western university and my experience was the Chinese government was sponsoring kids who came to the US to learn how to hack. I was responsible for network security for the engineering and CS building's network and saw many attempts at hacking by Chinese students within the network and directed outward to the Internet. No one in the university was interested in taking action against these students when incontrovertible evidence was collected and offered. Faculty were defending the hackers and administration largely supported faculty so there were no sanctions. I don't know if these students were directed to this behavior but there was certainly a culture which was pervasive among these Chinese students that you did not see among other groups of international students from places like India, Pakistan, Nepal, the Mideast, the former Soviet republics and/or eastern Europe.
Stop calling it war. (Score:4, Insightful)
We have information crimes punishable by 16 years in prison. And now we're having information "wars."
The Internet is the Wild West. If you don't like it, create a physically secure regimented network and don't let unregistered bad people onto it. Stop with the "war" rhetoric.
Think for half a second. Who would want a cyberwar and who would benefit from one? Now ask yourself: Who would end up doing the dying when the cyberwar turned ugly?
This is just a variant of the nonsense that the RIAA is trying to pull. People with money want to capitalize and control the internet, and violence, and the threat of violence (the killing and imprisoning kind) are the traditional means of imposing control.
Don't buy into the bullshit. "Information war" can become just another synonym for the restriction of free speech.
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war: 4.active hostility or contention; conflict; contest: a war of words.-dictionary.com
I don't know, sounds like "war" pretty accurately describes what's going on right now. A war does not have to include violence or death. And the RIAA is not trying to kill you.
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"War" is a bad word choice because it lacks precision in this context. The current situation can be escalated. What word would you use to describe that escalation?
War is pretty much at the top of the conflict pyramid. I'd want to use a word that leaves room for the conflict to get much worse.
Talking violently is the necessary precursor to any group acting violently. Why not avoid the rhetoric of violence?
What's to be gained from exposing them? (Score:2)
OK, Western governments (and corporations) know damn well China is conducting cyber-attacks. Suppose Secretary of State Clinton goes to the Chinese and makes a formal accusation, what do they do? Deny it, of course, complain about how the West is oppressing them, threaten to do various nasty things.
OK, suppose she brings irrefutable proof that the attacks originate from China? Well, they deny some more and complain some more, but maybe they get pinned down. Now they blame some "rogue elements", execute
Why the silence? To conceal their own activites (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's not for a second think that this is a one-way street. If one nation is at it, you can bet that pretty much everyone else is, too (just like torture). That it's done under the radar and with no public acknowledgement just tells us that it falls under the category of black-ops, rather than ordinary warfare.
And unlike ordinary warfare, where it's pretty obvious who's shooting at you, in cyberwar I doubt that it's possible to tell who are your friends, or even if the concept of allies actually exists. It's not about ideology it's about sticking the boot in to anyone who appears to be getting the upper hand.
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And unlike ordinary warfare, where it's pretty obvious who's shooting at you, in cyberwar I doubt that it's possible to tell who are your friends, or even if the concept of allies actually exists. It's not about ideology it's about sticking the boot in to anyone who appears to be getting the upper hand.
If you've read the newspaper over the last 30 years, there's no doubt our allies are definitely doing the same thing to us.
Of our allies, Israel typically gets the most press for their repeated spying/hacking/espionage attempts and successes.
Every year, Congress gets a report titled "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage Reports" [ncix.gov]
This obviously doesn't include thefts from the government, but it'll give you an idea of what's happening.
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Your theory presumes that they have something we'd want to steal.
Let's try an analogy... (Score:3)
I found it rather astonishing while watching CNN a week or so back to hear them reporting that the DoD was indicating the U.S. had been subject to a large-scale hacking attack by a sovereign state, but -they weren't releasing which one it was-.
I couldn't help thinking about this stance as it would be applied to, say, Pearl Harbor. "Yes, the United States is under attack. No, you as an American citizen and taxpayer aren't entitled to know who is attacking you, from your own defense agencies. We're prioritizing the interests of Said Foreign Power, including any right-to-know you may feel you have, ahead of our citizenry."
This is an incredible stance to take, and the fact it was a "cyber-attack" seems be pretty irrelevant to the basic questions regarding representative government this raises. Yet, CNN doesn't even blink an eye flatly reporting this without noting any objection.
Strange Days.
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I wonder if it was Eastasia, or if those longtime friends of Eurasia betrayed us...
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This is a good thing (Score:2)
Without these hostile actions, we'd never harden our defenses. We'd never worry about XSS or SQL injections.
I was shocked the first time I looked at the http logs of a "real site" It just amazed me. So now, even if I am going throw-away work on a hobby site, I am sure to guard against these attacks. And everything is better.
Better to know the hackers are out there, rather than assume they don't exist. It makes the threat credible and real and that leads to improvements.
Ignore China (Score:2)
In addition to blocking unwanted open ports to the world, have just about all of China's IPs in my ipfilter, denying them access to anything but HTTP (they might want to read my blogs...right?). Also the other countries called out by http://www.countryipblocks.net/malicious-internet-traffic/malicious-internet-activity-the-top-10-countries/ [countryipblocks.net] are likewise blocked. Yeah, that's about 10K IP blocks in the filter, but it seems to run just fine, and I end up with only sporadic and apparently random (or maybe succe
I can tell you why (Score:2)
The answer is quite simple: It's because China is a huge market, and Western companies want to be there much more than they mind being attacked.
I can give you a perfect example of this. I have a buddy who is an engineer with a major auto manufacturer. A few years ago, he was telling me how the Chinese car companies are blatantly ripping off the designs of other companies. He even said that GM found that Cherry Motors was doing such a good job of it that their parts were identical to and interchangeable
Hacker call-to-arms (Score:3, Interesting)
HUMPH (Score:5, Insightful)
"private companies are still quite weak in the face of national governments" [Citation needed]
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I don't think so. In my experience big corporation have really crappy security and a lot of disgruntled and/or underpaid employees practically begging for someone to offer them cash to screw over the man. So they're poorly equipped to counter any kind of real threat.
Maybe I've just been working in the wrong places :-/
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You've been working in the wrong places. While the impact on employee functions is not a good indicsator of corporate security effectiveness, where I work we struggle against many restrictions and much software intended to prevent us from sending sensitive data, even accidentally or via malware etc. Data is inspected repeatedly, I can see, and ultimately anything encrypted in a way they cannot decode is rejected or held pending business justification. Social sites are blocked, including a slew of comment
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You've been working in the wrong places.
Hah, well at least I'm still moderately gruntled :-)
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anything encrypted in a way they cannot decode is rejected or held pending business justification
Most of the rest sounds great (at least from the point of view of being secure), but I bet that this means you send most of email unencrypted. Hmm.
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Not if it contains certain recognizable data, it gets returned. Without spilling the beanZ, stuff like account numbers, etc are blocked, even if they are inside encrypted files. This often results in innocent email getting returned to me cause something looks suspicious. Even images containing this data are being caught. These guys are fairly good.
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It's just not in their interest to fight.
And the difference is?
To turn this story on its head: I think it is quite encouraging to know that the almighty mega-corporations are not quite as strong as we all thought - the reason being that whereas a business, and especially a big one, is only accoutable to its investors, a government is accountable to its people. This is true even in countries without Western-style democracy; ultimately the power of the state does derive from the people. It is sad how often that is forgotten, not least by politicians
Re:Not so much that they are weak (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's a cost of doing business and it's passed on to competitors
If you could work out how to do that, you'd be rich...
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I have a different view. Megacorps view this stuff the same way they view the rampant theft at retail stores. It's a cost of doing business and it's passed on to competitors.
You can pass losses on to competitors!? In that case, Walmart should open it's door, fire the staff and put up a sign saying "PLEASE DEPOSIT CORRECT PAYMENT INTO BOWL BEFORE LEAVING". This would cut down on labor costs and really stick it to Target when they pass any losses on.
GN Fail (Score:2)
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Way to fail at a grammar nazi post there.
I keep forgetting ... are they going to kill all the grammar Nazis before or after all the lawyers? At the very least I expect them to board the same ship as the telephone sanitation engineers and beauticians.
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Nothing of value was lost and no one gives a crap.
Right. Not yet, but it will be. And just because there are few published reports or incidents of the "West" retaliating doesn't mean there isn't massive preparation underway. If there isn't, it's due to incompetence. Waiting to show your hand is just a smart play in the game.
Or am I just paranoid and the "rival"/"co-dependent" governments are just looking for a way to stay friendly and exchange daisies?
Re:Not so much that they are weak (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it's due to the fact that China could bankrupt the US by simply refusing to buy any more treasury bonds.
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I think that's an economic version of Mutually Assured Destruction. Of course, both sides are trying to get out of that cycle and China is prevailing, but right now China would never go to economic war with the US because there is no winner, only multiple losers. Cyber warfare, however, just gives one side an edge over the other with little repercussions. Sometimes I feel like, here on /., anytime rivalry between the US and China comes up somebody just knee-jerks and feels the insatiable need to bring up
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Except if you're looking for motives to tip-toe around China, the U.S. debt is a big one.
This Was Not China (Score:2)
I'm sure China does their share - like France, Russia... Hell even bleedin' Scotland.
When you have a serious foreign policy allegation released by the subsidiary of a major corporation, it is wise to question the release as disinformation.
Again, I would put Israel at the centre of any serious inquiry of large-scale, cyber-espionage.
Whatever the case, I would categorise this story as misdirection - and would request that the authors disclose their full evidence and sources for public scrutiny - if they are t
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Re:Not so much that they are weak (Score:4, Insightful)
If they refuse to buy more I'm sure someone else will.
In order to a entice sufficient "someone else" to buy the Treasury bonds we'd have to raise interest rates -- unless the bonds are being purchased for non-investment reasons. The Federal Reserve is buying the bonds to artificially lower the interest rates on the bonds: the major side effect of this action is inflation.(1)
Or we could just default on the ones they are holding.
If we default on the ones we're holding (yeah! debt free!) then no-one in the future will buy more bonds for fear that we'll default on their holdings -- we're now an incredible credit risk. If we eventually do con people into buying our bonds again, they'll want exorbitant interest rates: just like if you walk away from your house, you'll be charge a significantly higher interest rate on your next house.
Either of your solutions means that the United States stops borrowing. While that is a good long term fix, we're currently too addicted to spending to quit cold turkey.
(1) We do have ourselves in an interesting predicament where we have both deflation going on in durable goods (cars, appliances, houses) and inflation on the consumable level (e.g., food). This shows that (a) the fundamentals are bad for the currency, and (b) consumer confidence low enough that people don't want to make major purchases. What they're forced to buy (food) is going up in price; what they can avoid buying (durables) they are.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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China owns a small percent of us bonds. More are owned by our TRUE allies such as Japan, the UK, etc.
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Currently china's holdings of usa treasury debt ($1.16 trillion ---> http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt [treas.gov]).
USA cash deficits (issuance of new debt) [approximate to 1/10 $trillion)
fy 2008 $0.5 trillion
fy 2009 $1.4 trillion
fy 2010 $1.2 trillion
fy 2011 $1.6 trillion (projected)
While china does hold a lot of USA treasury debt, they are hardly the only buyer. As of late the USA treasury has been issuing more new debt in one year than china's entire holdings of said debt.
I don't believe the claim "china could bank
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Or it's due to the fact that China could bankrupt the US by simply refusing to buy any more treasury bonds.
Please. Ok China already owns a huge amount (roughly 30% last I heard) of T bonds. Ever hear the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket"? If those bastards in congress did not find a way to increase the debt ceiling our precious triple A credit rating would have dropped significantly and the value of those treasury bonds would have went with it. China has emough trouble with their own economy growing too fast so they don't need additional problems from us. But that's just what will happen. Yesterday
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Not really. Not raising the debt ceiling would be tantamount to "daddy taking away the credit card" and is not the same as "not paying on what you currently owe on the credit card." Yes but if Moody's lowers the rating (which they may yet do) it will impact our ability to borrow money and eventually we will have to make severe cuts to balance the budget. So in a way we are just buying time until the inevitable or till someone comes up with a good idea (like stopping corporate welfare and raising taxes for the rich).
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Actually, China buys our bonds to keep the dollar strong. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/30/us-economy-china-debt [guardian.co.uk]. That would bankrupt a lot of people who depend on "free trade" with China to maintain their wealth and their profits.
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Forgive me for being unimpressed, but this argument has been carried out to the point of absurdity. From the article itself:
The U.S. could protest cyberattacks by sending a couple of aircraft-carrier groups to the China Sea for a little gunboat diplomacy, but it would be pretty embarrassing if China were to just repossess the whole fleet as partial repayment of the $1.2 trillion the U.S. owes it.
We'd end up having to pay off the whole debt just to get the boats back—plus whatever huge fee there would be for the towing and daily storage fee at the aircraft-carrier impound lot, and that's a lot of money to spend for bit of saber-rattling that would be futile in the real world and irrelevant in the virtual one.
Seriously? Take on a nuclear carrier group with a repo team? This kind of crap is even worse than the most egregious trolling by some of the loud-mouthed idiots found on slashdot. Please put some thought into a reasonable argument.
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They wouldn't bankrupt they U.S., they would make interest rates go up.
However, China couldn't maintain the peg of their currency with the dollar if they stopped buying bonds, and that peg keeps the business in their factories.
Remember, China buying all these bonds is a policy that China instituted for the benefit of China and against the long-term interests of the USA.
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Remember, China buying all these bonds is a policy that China instituted for the benefit of China and against the long-term interests of the USA.
U.S. "Hey, we need to borrow some money."
China: "Okay"
U.S. "Bad, China, bad!".
You do know how stupid this sounds, right?
C//
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"And just because there are few published reports or incidents of the "West" retaliating doesn't mean there isn't massive preparation underway. If there isn't, it's due to incompetence. Waiting to show your hand is just a smart play in the game."
For five years? Seems to be 100% incompetence and lack of will.
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Because no one cares. Nothing of value was lost and no one gives a crap.
Maybe. Nobody knows; but Chinese companies have been winning lots of surprising contracts recently. And Chinese people have been dying because their government thought they could build signalling systems just because they had a few new blueprints. Quite a bit may have been lost by some people. On the other hand, maybe the Chinese deserve a bit of development. It's not like they go around killing that many foreigners since Tibet. Even in India they have been pretty restrained (relatively speaking).
Ohh a cyberwar. What the hell is that?
Not
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Your kiddy land concepts of so called "cyber-war" (the name is awful) are antiquated and foolhardy. In the last 6 months, we've seen dozens of individual ca
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Like Wow, man! The 60's called and want you to come back home. The government itching to take over companies? How do you explain them giving back GM, Chrysler, etc. Or letting the large banks largely free? The only banks they take over are the ones scheduled for liquidation because they've screwed the pooch.
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Eh? The majority of the US debt (~68%) is owned by he US. Next troll please.
Re:Easy: follow the money... (Score:4, Informative)
Same misconception that people had in the 70's and 80's about Japan buying up America. Do some research before your spout off stats feed to you by the media.
US and Individuals own: 42.2%
Social Security Trust Fund: 17.9%
All other foreign nations: 11.6%
China: 7.5%
US Civil Service Retirement Fund: 6.4%
UK: 3.4%
US Military Retirement Fund: 2.1%
Oil Exporters:1.6%
Brazil(?): 1.3%
So, that means 68.6% if our debt is held by ourselves.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/246958-guess-who-owns-the-most-u-s-debt-not-china [seekingalpha.com]
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UK: 3.4%
This just confuses me. We have a massive debt of our own, why are we lending money to the USA? We owed the USA a lot after World War II, and that was only paid back in the '90s as I recall, so this is recent borrowing. Unless we each lend each other money using some kind of crazy accounting trick.
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The link in previous post doesn't have a lot of specifics, but I suspect that the UK debt is largely held by individual investors and banks. Also, whatever the UK has for a central bank probably needs to sit on some large and liquid dollar investments in order to help regulate the monetary supply and keep the currency stable.
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By "UK", I assume they mean "bond investors in the UK", not "the UK government".
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Has Rupert Murdoch bought Slashdot?
Inquiring minds want to know!
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"After identifying the command-and-control server, located in a Western country"
Mb the average Western spook wanted to keep it flowing to see who collected or what was been collected in a part of the world where telcos where 'friendly'.
Nothing like a "Room 641A" in a "Western country" for ducting off a telcos bulk data in real time, no questions, legal teams, contacts, requests, meetings...
Also think of national s
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I take it you really mean, the vast majority of US government debt is owned by US-based banks. Its pretty hard to owe yourself money :)
Still, China owns enough ot make everyone worried, and yes they're foreign (to the US) so they would own most of the foreign-owned debt.
FYI, China owns a vast load of Euro debt too, they just have so much of our money they don't know what to do with it.