Customers in China of Apple Inc.'s iTunes online music store were unable to download songs this week, and an activist group said Beijing was trying to block access to a new Tibet-themed album.
In Internet forums, iTunes users complained they had been unable to download music since Monday. That was a day after the Art of Peace Foundation announced the release of "Songs for Tibet," with music by Sting, Alanis Morissette, Garbage and others, and a 15-minute talk by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.
Michael Wohl, executive director of the New York City-based group, said he believed the album was the reason for the iTunes interruption, though he had no proof.
"We issued a release saying that over 40 (Olympic) athletes downloaded the album in an act of solidarity, and that's what triggered it. Then everything got blocked," Wohl said by phone.
Beijing encourages Internet use for education and business use but tries to block access to foreign sites run by dissidents and human rights and Tibet activists.
See, fuck the Middle East. I want China taken down. They're the problem. They're government that needs to be destroyed. But, they don't have any oil, so we don't seem to give a shit...
I think it more has to do with the fact that they have nukes more than it does that they don't have oil.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
No, fuck them all! (and you Phil, I caught your tone)
Send some secret agents in to infiltrate their society. Then, corrupt their society and government with western materialism. Then, when no one is looking.....steal the nuclear knowledge from their minds!
Then gather the UN and Friends, and rape that ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTRY!!!
The thing with China is they're an enemy, yes, but they're also good for business. The U.S. isn't going to take out one of their biggest trade partners....
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
No, fuck them all! (and you Phil, I caught your tone)
Send some secret agents in to infiltrate their society. Then, corrupt their society and government with western materialism. Then, when no one is looking.....steal the nuclear knowledge from their minds!
Then gather the UN and Friends, and rape that ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTRY!!!
China has too strong a grip over the more culturally viral elements in the country for that to work (although, it's getting so huge, I don't think there's going to be any way to police it for too long). Subtle and gradual Westernization would just make them paranoid and destroy any form of perceived descent.
I say we take a page out of our Muslim Brothers' hand-book and encourage the development of terrorist cells that would target military and federal installations.
Originally Posted By: King Snarf
The thing with China is they're an enemy, yes, but they're also good for business. The U.S. isn't going to take out one of their biggest trade partners....
You mean you wouldn't. Or Europe, or Canada, or anyone else other than America.
No one in America, except for Snarf, wants to remain attached to China. But while some countries are just filled with a bunch of whores, America is cursed with something known as the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is basically forcing America into long term association with them.
Eh? NAFTA is for US, Canadia and Mexicania. China isn't part of NAFTA.
I don't look the PRC government much but I don't necessarily believe its evil, just callous. They have some overwhelming preoccupations with certain issues. I met the Australian trade commissioner for some Chinese city or another a few months ago. He was saying that at one stage a city (Chengdu?) of 10 million plus suffered a massive water shortage - the entire city had a week's worth of fresh water. So they run rampant over basic human liberties trying to overcome issues like that.
The Olympics have been fascinating. Shutting down factories and keeeping cars of the road just to make the place smell nice (and obviously not negatively impact upon athletes' health) is just typical.
I have only been to Beijing once, in 2003, and stayed in a decent hotel not far from Tianammin (sp) Square. I had a Palm Pilot which I left on the desk in the hotel. I went out to wonder about the city. When I came back my room stunk of cigarette smoke and the Palm Pilot had been moved, slightly. I figure it was searched. I was there as a tourist, and it really put me off the place. (Hong Kong, where I lived for 4 years, is nothing like the rest of China, so that doesn't count.)
American manufacturers are using China because the labour happens to be cheap. So basically big business wants to keep the Chinese on side. I don't think that's a bad thing, personally, because a failure to open markets is one of the biggest causes of wars, but then again I'm personally not worried about losing my job.
Obama Says U.S. Seeks to Build Stronger Ties to China: “I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China’s emergence,” Mr. Obama told an audience in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. But he added, “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another.”
Great. Now he's kissing China's ass. Obama really hates America.
Obama Says U.S. Seeks to Build Stronger Ties to China: “I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China’s emergence,” Mr. Obama told an audience in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. But he added, “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another.”
Apparently, this t-shirt has been real popular in China.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. He lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades. He writes:
the president has united the political spectrum against him for his abandonment of human rights as a central element of the American dialogue with China. The New York Times gently put it this way this weekend: “The American president must always be willing to stand up to Beijing in defense of core American interests and values.”
What the president does not understand is that American values are American interests. American diplomats tend to separate the two and sometimes think that promoting the former can undermine the latter. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton obviously subscribes to this view. After all, this February she famously said that the issue of Chinese human rights cannot be permitted to “interfere” with important topics of discussion with Beijing. The president, for his part, broke the precedent of the last three administrations and refused to see the Dalai Lama during His Holiness’s trip to Washington early last month. The administration indicated Obama did not want to rile the Chinese before his visit.
What Obama and Clinton fail to comprehend is that America derives its security because of its values. Peoples around the world support our policies precisely because they share our beliefs. And with the Chinese there is another dimension: Beijing’s ruthlessly pragmatic leaders see our failure to press human rights as a sign that we think we are weak. And if they think we are weak, they see little reason to cooperate. So promoting human rights is protecting American security.
Chinese officials were reported to have been ecstatic when Secretary Clinton issued her February remarks. Since then, they have been noticeably less cooperative on the great issues of the day. And in March, just one month after her statement, they felt bold enough to order their vessels to harass two of our unarmed ships in international waters in the South China and Yellow Seas. The Chinese even attempted to sever a towed sonar array from one of the Navy vessels. That hostile act constituted an attack on the United States.
The United States and China reported no major breakthroughs Friday after only their second round of talks about human rights since 2002.
Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state...said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.
He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.
So the Obama administration-- talking to a government that maintains a gulag, denies people their basic rights and harvests organs--apologized for the new immigration law in Arizona?
They talked about it but there wasn't an actual apology according to your own source G-man. Our administration is there pushing them to treat their people better.
I've read several articles in recent months about Chinese naval strategy, referring to "first island chain" and "second island chain". And believed to be part of their strategy but not fully proven, a "third island chain", a defensive perimiter of islands to protect China from invasion, or alternately, to expand its naval trade interests and shipping lanes.
Here's an article I dug up, with maps, that explains it pretty well:
The "second chain" extends out to Guam and the Marianna Islands, and south to Australia.
The "third chain" is believed to include Hawaii. China's plan is to "layer" defenses so they can sink any ship, with either Chinese naval power or Chinese missiles out to these island chain regions.
The waterways within the "second island chain" including the Japan Sea, the Philippines Sea and Indonesia Sea, covering Kuriles, Kokkaido, and Marianas and Palau Islands in the south. To prevent deployment of naval forces into western Pacific waters, PLA planners are focused on targeting surface ships at long ranges. US DOD analyses of current and projected force structure improvements suggested as of 2007 that in the near term, China was seeking the capacity to hold surface ships at risk through a layered defense that reaches out to the “second island chain” (i.e., the islands extending south and east from Japan, to and beyond Guam in the western Pacific Ocean). One area of apparent investment emphasis involves a combination of medium-range ballistic missiles, C4ISR for geo-location of targets, and onboard guidance systems for terminal homing to strike surface ships on the high seas or their onshore support infrastructure. Other analysts believe that if China truly intends to expand its regional control to the "second island chain," they will have to build or acquire aircraft carriers to achieve this capability.
In the conception of Jiang Hong and Wei Yuejiang, the second island chain runs through Guam — another forward redoubt for US forces — and ends at Australia. Other analysts see Guam as in a "third island chain." Some unofficial Chinese publications refer to a “Third Island Chain” centered on America’s Hawaiian bases, viewed as a “strategic rear area” for the US military.
This is a nice concise and well-thought-out overview of the crises facing China, that are coalescing into a perfect storm.
I've seen several articles and books in recent years that project the inevitable collapse of China.
But also disturbing is the number of projections I've seen that the U.S. will collapse and China will experience a temporary benefit from it, before their inevitable collapse later follows.
The danger is that as China becomes increasingly desperate for oil and other resources that it cannot provide for itself, it will become militarily aggressive and take those resources from other nations. And it is clearly building its military at a rapid pace, toward that end.
DENVER — A commercial U.S. satellite company said it has captured a photo of China's first aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea off the Chinese coast.
DigitalGlobe Inc. said Wednesday one of its satellites photographed the carrier Dec. 8. A DigitalGlobe analyst found the image Tuesday while searching through photos.
Stephen Wood, director of DigitalGlobe's analysis center, said he's confident the ship is the Chinese carrier because of the location and date of the photo. The carrier was on a sea trial at the time.
DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colo., sells satellite imagery and analysis to clients that include the U.S. military, emergency response agencies and private companies. DigitalGlobe has three orbiting satellites and a fourth is under construction.
The aircraft carrier has generated intense international interest because of what it might portend about China's intentions as a military power.
The former Soviet Union started building the carrier, which it called the Varyag, but never finished it. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it ended up in the hands of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic.
China bought the ship from Ukraine in 1998 and spent years refurbishing it. It had no engines, weaponry or navigation systems when China acquired it.
China has said the carrier is intended for research and training, which has led to speculation that it plans to build future copies.
China initially said little about its plans for the carrier but has been more open in recent years, said Bonnie S. Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"It wasn't until the Chinese actually announced they were sending it out on a trial run they admitted, `Yes, we are actually launching a carrier,'" she said.
China publicly announced two sea trials for the carrier that occurred this year, she said.
The carrier's progress is in line with the U.S. military's expectations, said Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Defense Department spokeswoman.
A Defense Department report to Congress this year said the carrier could become operationally available to the Chinese navy by the end of next year but without aircraft.
"From that point, it will take several additional years before the carrier has an operationally viable air group," Hull-Ryde said in an email.
She declined to comment on the DigitalGlobe photo, saying it was an intelligence matter.
The Obama administration has confirmed a report that unidentified hackers targeted an unclassified computer network for the White House Military Office in an cyber attack last month.
The office handles all military related functions at the White House, including presidential transportation, communications, food service, and security of the so-called “nuclear football,” the apparatus which is kept near the president and is used to house the nuclear war plan.
“This was a spear phishing attack against an unclassified network,” a senior administration official told ABC News after the hack attack was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, citing defense department officials.
“These types of attacks are not infrequent and we have mitigation measures in place,” the official said. “In this instance the attack was identified, the system was isolated, and there is no indication whatsoever that any exfiltration of data took place.”
The hackers did not target or breach a classified system, the official added, further downplaying the incident.
The Free Beacon reports that the hackers have ties to the Chinese government, citing one defense official who called the incident one of China’s “most brazen cyber attacks against the U.S.” and indicative of a failure on the part of the administration to curb covert cyber-tactics against American targets.
The administration official would not comment on whether or not China was believed to be behind the attack.
President Obama is reportedly considering an executive order to impose new protections for U.S. computer networks after Congress failed to pass a cybersecurity bill before recessing for fall elections. Republicans had opposed the proposed new rules and regulations as unnecessary new burdens on businesses.
A very interesting interview, on Chinese government cyber-hacking of the New York Times and other media, in addition to many other public and private U.S. sites.
Quote:
Editors said hired security experts concluded Chinese hackers cracked the passwords of more than 50 e-mail accounts, including those of top reporters. The Times reported the attacks coincided with an investigation the paper did that found relatives of Wen Jiabao, China's prime minister, had accumulated billions of dollars through their business dealings.
Quote:
So our security team notified AT&T, which monitors our network full-time, to look out for unusual activity. And we notified them a day before the story published. And the day the story went online, AT&T got back to us and said that they had noticed that at least three of our computers were communicating with command-and-control servers that they knew had perpetrated attacks on other companies before and that they believed were being coordinated by the Chinese military.
Quote:
The timing of the attacks with the investigation of the story gave us some sense, but they were very active in the week after we published the story, and especially on election night, on November 6, which led some of my editors to suspect or fear that they might do the worst, which would be take down our print or online publication systems.
But very soon, it was -- it became very clear what they were after. We hired Mandiant, who came in and looked at our systems, and it looks as if they spent two weeks once they initially got into our systems in September moving around our systems, until they finally found the domain controller that contains usernames and passwords for every single New York Times employee.
They took those passwords, they cracked them, and they got into 53 of our computers, which it looks like they really used as a launching path -- launching pad for the real target of their attacks, which were the e-mail correspondents of David Barbosa, our Shanghai bureau chief, and Jim Yardley, our Beijing bureau chief.
David is the one who wrote the investigation into Mr. Wen's relatives. And based on what the attackers took, it looks as if they were looking for the sources of David Barbosa's investigation.
What is ironic about that is, as David has said publicly, the sources for that investigation were not some Deep Throat. It was publicly available documents in China. So we could see the documents that these hackers were taking, and they were not sensitive by any means. There was no Deep Throat. And it was clear that they were after his e-mail correspondence pretty early on in the attacks.
Quote:
Just in the last several hours, it's become known that CNN International, the external service of the CNN television network, and The Wall Street Journal were also victims of similar attacks.
And the United States government is now putting cyber-vulnerability on its intelligence estimates.
Quote:
And it's amazing how broad a problem it's become. When we started doing these investigations years ago, it was primarily aerospace and defense sector. You could almost count on those sectors being targeted. Today, it would almost be easier to tell you which sectors aren't being targeted.
We see anything from energy in oil and gas, to clean technology, biofuels, law firms, and, of course, as we heard today, even media and entertainment, so very broad-based attacks.
Quote:
Well, the Chinese-language edition was blocked the day that that story on Wen Jiabao's relatives went live. And it continues to be blocked in China. And now we have seen that we have been hacked as well. We would like to relaunch that site in China, but it's a process.
Quote:
I don't think that this will deter us from doing the journalism we have always done. And I will say, I really credit The Times for letting this story be told. As Grady can probably tell you, there were hundreds of other organizations targeted by the same group that hit The New York Times. You just haven't heard about any of them.
So, this is the first time that we have been able to provide sort of a rare glimpse into what one of these attacks looks like.
