Chinese spies may have put chips in US planes

Chinese spies may have put chips in US planes

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

WASHINGTON: The Chinese cyber spies have penetrated so deep into the US system ranging from its secure defence network, banking system, electricity grid to putting spy chips into its defence planes — that it can cause serious damage to the US any time, a top US official on counter-intelligence has said.

“We’re also seeing counterfeit routers and chips, and some of those chips have made their way into US military fighter aircraft.. You don’t sneak counterfeit chips into another nation’s aircraft to steal data. When it’s done intentionally, it’s done to degrade systems, or to have the ability to do so at a time of one’s choosing.”

(visit the link for the full news article)

WOW, this nation needs to really start thinking outside of the box to deter foreign intelligence and in this case malicious acts. I can't imagine what is going through the heads of the brass right now wondering how many aircraft, vehicles, and weapon systems have been compromised.

The Chinese are playing for keeps. Once the dollar is dumped as the reserve currency the USA will really be hurting. China may finally have the USA by the balls. It makes you wonder what these chips are doing and what their purpose may be. This could be used as an offensive or defensive measure when the time is right.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Why oh why do we (our government) continue to think the Chinese are our friends? Why do we do business with them?

Oh, I forgot... money, greed, the all mighty dollar. As long as businesses can make their products off of cheap Chinese labor and line their pockets with the profits... then who cares what it does to our country.

“Chinese penetrations of unclassified DoD networks have also been widely reported. Those are more sophisticated, though hardly state of the art,”

What this source conveniently fails to mention is that critical military, federal and government networks are penetrating hundreds of thousands of times per year by hackers originating from the US.

Not China, not Russia, but the country from which 1/3 of all malicious hacking attempts come from:

A common misconception is that the attackers are usually based overseas or outside of the US. Symantec disputes this belief in its report, saying 31 percent of the malicious activity came from within US borders, the highest of any country.

BetaNews

The study found that attacks that appeared to originate in the United States — nearly 30% of the total — were nearly triple the second-ranked country.

USA Today

There are IT nerds and highschool dropouts far more dangerous than any Chinese military hacker; who have actually caused untold millions in damages to productivity and stolen secretive/proprietary data from major businesses all across the US.

Like the people responsible for every single worm targeting Windows XP in the past 8 years.

Oh my! The times of India having another bash at fragmenting the world via the medium of sensationalism... Who would of thought?

reply to post by Now_Then




I was thinking the same thing. What is India getting a little paranoid over China's influence in the world now? As far as the hacking everybody and their brother who thinks of themselves as a "Hacker" all seem to want to have a go at some secret installation of the US. When most of the most sensitive locations are not hard wired into any open grid.

This does not mean there isn't sensitive information floating around.

Whatever motivations of the Indian media (and whatever influences them) notwithstanding; they use of 'planting' government/intelligence tools within exported technology is not unique to the Chinese.

It seems almost impossible to know for certain if a particular integrated chip component among the thousands each piece of which special equipment is comprised is compromoised.

This is but one of many problems with the notion of allowing corporate entities to operate 'for profit' outside the country of which they are supposed to be 'citizens.'

It has been done before, and will continue to happen, as long as the tried-and-failed philosophy of 'lowest bidder' is coupled with corporately influenced procurement in government and sensitive industry. After all, ifr a government is willing to subsidize the activity for their purposes, any corporation can afford to underbid the competition.

But our 'leaders', led by coprorate perspectives and wealth, don't wan't to upset that applecart.

reply to post by The Godfather of Conspira


The hacking attempts have nothing to do with China integrating compromised components into the aircraft of the USA armed forces. The article states that these components have already been found.

But back to the Chinese hacking into DOD systems. What makes there attempts stand out is that it's not some IT nerd but the Chinese government/military. Just do a Google search and it's all over the place.

Does the line, "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer" sound about right?

Originally posted by The Godfather of Conspira

“Chinese penetrations of unclassified DoD networks have also been widely reported. Those are more sophisticated, though hardly state of the art,”

What this source conveniently fails to mention is that critical military, federal and government networks are penetrating hundreds of thousands of times per year by hackers originating from the US.

Not China, not Russia, but the country from which 1/3 of all malicious hacking attempts come from:

A common misconception is that the attackers are usually based overseas or outside of the US. Symantec disputes this belief in its report, saying 31 percent of the malicious activity came from within US borders, the highest of any country.

BetaNews

The study found that attacks that appeared to originate in the United States — nearly 30% of the total — were nearly triple the second-ranked country.

USA Today

There are IT nerds and highschool dropouts far more dangerous than any Chinese military hacker; who have actually caused untold millions in damages to productivity and stolen secretive/proprietary data from major businesses all across the US.

Like the people responsible for every single worm targeting Windows XP in the past 8 years.

Or perhaps those incidents originating from within the United States, are actually conducted by individuals or groups that are not American, but rather part of a spy ring or cells or whatever.

Perhaps the Chinese have recruited local American born Chinese?

The possibilities are almost endless.

The source is also questionable. Take what is said in the Indian media regarding its two neighbouring "foes" China and Pakistan with a grain of salt.

China buys a lot of US and European equipment, so I'm sure that it goes the other way too. The PRC President flies on an Air China 747-400. They ordered at least one 767-300 for use in 2000, but in 2001 said that 27 spy devices had been found on board. The PLAAF also bought 8 737-300 and 2 737-700 aircraft. They also have at least two 737-300 aircraft that were converted to A3C aircraft. I'm sure there are at least a few things on those aircraft as well that aren't quite what they appear to be.

More broadly, Western diplomats said they believed Washington and Beijing would weather the dispute. "This kind of thing is to be expected," said a Chinese security expert, who noted that relations between Washington and Moscow were not seriously disrupted by disclosures in the 1980s that the Soviets had bugged the new U.S. Embassy. The expert added, "Even if our relations were excellent, we would still spy on each other."

China purchased the Boeing 767-300ER in June 2000 for $120 million, a Chinese source said. An executive at Delta Airlines said the Chinese were so eager to obtain a top-of-the-line 767 that Delta allowed China to assume its contractual responsibilities for one plane about to come off Boeing's assembly line in Seattle.

www.airliners.net...