China Wiretaps Americans in 'Worst Hack in Our Nation's History'

31 pointsposted 7 months ago
by blackeyeblitzar
(gizmodo.com)

12 Comments

gorjusborg

7 months ago

> reportedly exploiting the system U.S. authorities use to wiretap Americans in criminal cases

There is no such thing as a single purpose, single user backdoor, which is why people have been trying to defend end-to-end encryption. Even if the intention is that the backdoor is meant to be used by 'the good guys' for 'law enforcement', the backdoor is an intentional weakening of the system than anyone can try to access.

Blame the hackers if you want, but the policy of forcing backdoors in comms systems by the U.S. government was the first (and main) problem.

hulitu

7 months ago

> There is no such thing as a single purpose, single user backdoor

if course not. There are multi purpose, multi user backdoors. See Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Solar Winds, Apple, Microsoft, Google.

Encription is useless when they have the keys.

blackeyeblitzar

7 months ago

I can’t believe that this has not been discussed openly by the Biden administration. This is a huge black mark on the surveillance programs of America, another exoneration of Snowden (yes I realize this may not be the same prism program), a call for real consequences for cybersecurity issues, and yet another massive breach of trust with China. When will American politicians step up and hammer China with aggressive asymmetric warfare and also direct force? I expect aggressive tariffs and outright bans of Chinese imports would risk the CCP’s stability given their economy is on the ropes now anyways, but we should also be a lot more interventionist in their other interests (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Bhutan, etc). There is no reason to tolerate any of this.

fspeech

7 months ago

"There are limits to how far the United States can press its case with China. So far, the Chinese hack appears to involve only surveillance. That is something that the United States does regularly to Chinese telecommunications companies and is a form of espionage considered fair game as the two superpowers navigate a new, higher-stakes era using updated spy technology."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/us/politics/chinese-hack-...

talldayo

7 months ago

> I expect aggressive tariffs and outright bans of Chinese imports

We'll have to see how Americans react. If their feathers are ruffled by inflation they're definitely not going to take kindly to their Shein bill going through the roof. Either way, I don't think you're going to destroy China's economy by cutting out American imports. You're more likely to destroy the materialist lifestyle that's keeping America's middle class from collapsing. I have no love for America's reliance on the Chinese economy, but we chose this destiny. It was American business that sold us all out, and capitalism manufactured the consent.

> There is no reason to tolerate any of this.

Sure there is - it's an utter embarrassment that was inevitable from the moment Lawful Intercept was conceived. The US wanted this weapon, now they have to defend against it. This is a causal consequence of backdooring your telecommunications products and should be left as a smoldering example to anyone attempting something similar in the future. Seeking retribution for your own fuckup is senseless vengeance.

corimaith

7 months ago

>If their feathers are ruffled by inflation they're definitely not going to take kindly

In a election context, yes, but beyond some grumbling on the internet, probably nothing substantial. And in even then, alot of it is just psychological. Look in Turkey, in Russia or Argentina, inflation was at ludicrous levels yet things still remain relatively stable. There is a reason why economists fear unemployment much more than inflation, people are too busy working jobs to riot all day.

>we chose this destiny. It was American business that sold us all out, and capitalism manufactured the consent.

Hey, the global poor do deserve a ladder up, if America had held onto it's manufacturing at the time we would be keeping the rest of the third world in eternal stagnation. Better to have rich neighbours than poor neighbours, the problem is that neoliberals didn't anticipate the degree of ultranationalism that emerged as a result of those countries climbing up.

It's led to a contradictory state of affairs where the primary beneficiaries of the system seek to undermine it to establish their own poles of economic dominance, (ironically) kicking down the ladder for those yet to come.

>Seeking retribution for your own fuckup is senseless vengeance.

There's a saying about how Adults can't "make" mistakes, that once they'd said or committed to something they can't turn back. Maybe you believe that rigid sense of retributive self-satisfaction is worth the cost of vulnerability, but then you probably don't know the meaning of fear. Until it comes, and then it's too late.

IOT_Apprentice

7 months ago

I’d expect that the oligarchs who own US corporations love that cheap labor pool in China, India, Vietnam etc. remember they created the rust belt and the destruction of American manufacturing to cut labor costs.

The Chinese now build world class EV, cutting edge infrastructure the show the US as a 3rd world country.

Citizens of other nations don’t like the US CIA & military destabilizing their economies, and the US military destroying their infrastructure and people.

China is returning the favor, and if you think they EVER forgot the opium wars with the western powers to force opium into their country…well you have another think coming.

Look at all the countries in South America we have destabilized for corporations to loot their natural resources & wealth.

US corporations taught the Chinese industry all their know how, and they kept at it and have been flexing their technological capabilities.

They are mirroring what this country has done globally, just as we learned from the British.

JumpCrisscross

7 months ago

> can’t believe that this has not been discussed openly by the Biden administration

We're still figuring out what happened [1].

> it's an utter embarrassment that was inevitable from the moment Lawful Intercept was conceived

By this measure, the American IC should be all over China's secrets.

I don't like wiretaps either. But wiretaps can be done securely. Or at least more securely than we do them.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/us/politics/chinese-hack-...

Tier3r

7 months ago

I don't think the Biden admin can criticize Xi for cyber warfare with a straight face.

wholehog

7 months ago

Somehow annoying that Senator Warner gave the story to NYT and WaPo, even though WSJ broke the story:

"The hackers behind the infiltration of U.S. telecom infrastructure are known to Western intelligence agencies as Salt Typhoon, and this particular breach of U.S. equipment was first reported in early October by the Wall Street Journal. But Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, spoke with the Washington Post and New York Times this week to warn the public that this is so much worse than we initially thought, dubbing it “the worst telecom hack in our nation’s history.” And those articles based on Warner’s warnings were published late Thursday."

WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-t...