Why China’s Navy is a Threat

[BOfH]

Originally Posted by tonyz

such a deep-sea submersible may be of interest given, among other things, all of the undersea cables in existence.

Could be, though history has shown its far easier to drop an anchor on them, or blame the Mossad or NSA The cable landing points are more vulnerable though, due to their accessibility, the flipside is that they are also easier to repair.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by BOfH

The cable landing points are more vulnerable though, due to their accessibility...

Given the story, accessibility (to the cables themselves as opposed to the landing points) may have become less of a problem.

[The Reaper]

Wow, who knew that Chinese claims were given such credibility?

This is the same country that has to buy Russian aircraft engines because they cannot make their own work properly, is it not?

TR

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

This is the same country that has to buy Russian aircraft engines because they cannot make their own work properly, is it not?

TR

True. And, I agree that it is prudent to take reports coming out of China with a grain of salt.

But, if they can dive that deep the cables are particulalry vulnerable to these folks.

The Chi-comms are known hackers - I would speculate that those cables certainly make tempting targets for Chi-comms messing with financial infastructure and other goodies.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission - created by the United States Congress in October 2000 has commented on the particular vulnerability of undersea fiber optic cable systems. Below is a link to a report from January 2011.

U.S.-China Economic and Security

Review Commission Staff Report

January 2011

(Information current as of November 2010)

Page 39 and 40 of this report discusses the particular vulnerability of undersea fiber optic cable.

http://www.uscc.gov/RFP/2011/FINALRE...ionsSector.pdf

If the Chi-comms can really go that low...I've reflected after a shower and I am CERTAIN that they can go that low...it is getting back up that becomes the trick.

[BOfH]

Originally Posted by tonyz

Entire post

A few things to consider:

1. We give the Chinese more credit than they deserve, and the MSM along with the various security providers out there aren't helping either. For every Chinese hacker, there are 100+ compromised mahcines in China, along with other nation states that have well developed CW capabilities/doctrine, I wouldn't be quick to blame the Chinese for all malicious traffic that comes from their corner of the world, though most malicious traffic does come from them. There is at least one nation state that I can think of, that is quite adept at pinning the blame elsewhere, especially on countries that sell weapons to their enemies. That aside, China does have the motive(the need to stay competitive and keep costs low, what better way to steal R&D than do it yourself) and the capabilities.
2. The prevalence of strong encryption, as mandated by various federal, state and international laws and regulations on the commercial sector, severely limits the effectiveness of traditional wiretapping/network sniffing, combined with the fact that tapping fiber is no easy task. Remember, while Ivy Bells was a spectacular feat, that was over 30 years ago, and quite a bit has changed since then.
3. Path of least cost and resistance dictates that it is far easier to breach a secured network(you are going to have to take my word on this as a quasi SME) than send a submersible down and tap a single under-sea fiber line which will only give you a fraction of the picture(there are many domestic and internations under-sea optical lines currently in use).

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by BOfH

A few things to consider:

1. We give the Chinese more credit than they deserve, and the MSM along with the various security providers out there aren't helping either. For every Chinese hacker, there are 100+ compromised mahcines in China, along with other nation states that have well developed CW capabilities/doctrine, I wouldn't be quick to blame the Chinese for all malicious traffic that comes from their corner of the world, though most malicious traffic does come from them. There is at least one nation state that I can think of, that is quite adept at pinning the blame elsewhere, especially on countries that sell weapons to their enemies. That aside, China does have the motive(the need to stay competitive and keep costs low, what better way to steal R&D than do it yourself) and the capabilities.
2. The prevalence of strong encryption, as mandated by various federal, state and international laws and regulations on the commercial sector, severely limits the effectiveness of traditional wiretapping/network sniffing, combined with the fact that tapping fiber is no easy task. Remember, while Ivy Bells was a spectacular feat, that was over 30 years ago, and quite a bit has changed since then.
3. Path of least cost and resistance dictates that it is far easier to breach a secured network(you are going to have to take my word on this as a quasi SME) than send a submersible down and tap a single under-sea fiber line which will only give you a fraction of the picture(there are many domestic and internations under-sea optical lines currently in use).

From BofH post #42
"China has been developing a currency devaluation/destabilization doctrine for some time now(can't find the link at the moment), additionally, while we may attribute more cyber-warfare capability to them than they deserve, they are still a formidable foe. Like Communist Russia, they already know that matching US military might may be a useless endeavor, it's a lot easier to go for the soft underbelly of the capitalist machine, the technology and financial infrastructure than anything else. IMHO, this is an attempt to gain some legitimacy in the world military theater, and nothing more. With that said, we must never let our guard down, and decide that expenditures in the name of defending this country are optional(Mr. Frank, how you doin? ), as echoed numerous times by those here on this forum and others in the MSM, we need to refocus our spending on protecting that soft underbelly while not compromising on conventional defenses"



I hear you - if you are a Ron Paul supporter - it will be a trifecta.

[BOfH]

Originally Posted by tonyz

...if you are a Ron Paul supporter - it will be a trifecta.

Hell No!!

On a more serious note, I'd start worrying about the Israeli's...

ETA: In my line of work a little paranoia is healthy , and I have my reasons as well. Consider:

a) Verizon's data breach report only gets more depressing by the year. (http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resou...2011_en_xg.pdf)
b) Some companies are canning their InfoSec dept. in favor of hacker insurance, essentially saying "It's gonna happen anyway, why spend all this money trying to prevent it" (http://www.networkworld.com/news/201...anonymous.html)
c) At a recent briefing/conference that I attended, the Asst. Deputy Director of the FBI started his talk by stating "The current cyber security situation is untenable and unsustainable. The global economy cannot continue to absorb the costs associated with these breaches and the subsequent fallout."

China is like that pesky little brother that always manages to get into your room and your stuff, no matter how sure you are about locking the door. He then brags to his friends about that porn stash under the mattress, and makes sure that you can never live it down. In the meantime, he wasn't picking any locks or kicking in any doors , he was just piggy backing behind your mom when she went in to clean.

There's nothing fancy about what they do(most of the time), there's just a lot of low hanging fruit ripe for the picking, and their "eating" it by the bushel.