From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Sun Apr 28 2002 - 00:51:12 MDT
On 4/27/02 11:00 PM, "Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> wrote:
>
> This is not really new. Security professionals remember a big Chinese
> hacker attack from last summer and during the downed plane incident. I
> think it is simple assumption that they will repeat their past tactics
> when political tensions increase.
The underlying interactions are more complicated than this though. The US
intelligence services have a strict policy of not aiding US companies
directly, even when foreign intelligence services (e.g. China or France) are
using their capabilities to aid their domestic business interests in the
international market. However, they give indirect aid at critical junctures
in international business by airing the dirty laundry or hinting
foreknowledge of planned activities by the foreign intelligence service so
that the offending government or some third government will be forced to
take a different tack for political reasons. It may not look like much, but
whoever was supposed to get the message got the message. I don't have first
hand knowledge of what is going on with the US and China, but I can make a
number of good guesses based on what went on when I did have direct
knowledge of such things.
I don't know whether a specific American business interest is being
protected in this case or whether it is political move, but I do know that
the US has needed to be much more pointed in its dealing with China (e.g.
"accidentally" bombing an embassy) than it has with our much savvier and
more subtle opponents. At some level, we don't have the respect for the
Chinese that we have had for other opponents. When we were more actively
jousting with the USSR than we are the Russians today, the US operators had
a great deal of respect for the Soviets and vice versa. There was an
element of sportsmanship to it back then; the crudeness of the Chinese is
viewed with disdain by the people involved in these things as it makes
things messier than they could be.
I don't really read anything special in this bit of news, but I also have
enough background to know that in all likelihood this particular news clip
was put out there for a specific reason that may only be tangentially
related to what the news clip was about.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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