China

The world is focusing more and more on the activities of state sponsored Chinese hackers, but it seems hacking is endemic in China.

Name a target anywhere in China, an official at a state-owned company boasted recently, and his crack staff will break into that person’s computer, download the contents of the hard drive, record the keystrokes and monitor cellphone communications, too.

Pitches like that, from a salesman for Nanjing Xhunter Software, were not uncommon at a crowded trade show this month that brought together Chinese law enforcement officials and entrepreneurs eager to win government contracts for police equipment and services.

“We can physically locate anyone who spreads a rumor on the Internet,” said the salesman, whose company’s services include monitoring online postings and pinpointing who has been saying what about whom.  Read more »

The US is fighting back against the Chinese PLA hackers and getting stroppy over intellectual property theft.

With President Obama preparing for a first meeting with China’s new president, a commission led by two former senior officials in his administration will recommend a series of steps that could significantly raise the cost to China of the theft of American industrial secrets. If milder measures failed, the commission said, the United States should consider giving companies the right to retaliate against cyberattackers with counterstrikes of their own.  Read more »

The Chinese government sponsored hackers are back in business:

Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China’s People’s Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks  using different techniques, according to computer industry security experts and American officials.

The Obama administration had bet that “naming and shaming” the groups, first in industry reports and then in the Pentagon’s own detailed survey of Chinese military capabilities, might prompt China’s new leadership to crack down on the military’s highly organized team of hackers — or at least urge them to become more subtle.  Read more »

Cina has one of the strictest censorship regimes in the world but little by little information about their dodgy ratbags still seeps out:

Visitors from mainland China climb the narrow stairs to a cramped room here filled with forbidden delights: shelves of scandal-packed exposés about their Communist Party masters.

The People’s Recreation Community bookstore and several others on Hong Kong’s teeming shopping streets specialize in selling books and magazines banned by the Chinese government, mostly for their luridly damning accounts of party leaders, past and present. And at a time when many Chinese citizens smolder with distrust of their leaders, business is thriving.  Read more »

The Chinese cyber army are at it again, this time they have been busted.

Chinese cyber spies have been caught trying to steal the secrets of Britain’s most sophisticated combat jet, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

A covert unit within the Chinese Army has been using highly sophisticated cyber weapons in a desperate attempt to acquire classified information about the stealthy Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Manufacturer Lockheed Martin claims it is thwarting tens of thousands of computer attacks every week to keep secure secrets about the jet – due to be in service with the Royal Navy and RAF by 2018.  Read more »

The People’s Daily is the main state-owned newspaper of China’s communist party, and everyone was pretty psyched about the paper’s new Beijing headquarters. The building is massive, imposing, and, uh, currently shaped like a colossal penis. Now, as construction workers try to finish the engineering, the country’s censors are working overtime to stop Chinese people on social media from laughing at the expense of the very paper in charge of controlling the country’s message. According to The International Business Times, the nearly 500-foot tower won’t be finished until this time next year, but the war on mocking it has already begun.

You can’t control what the people decide to call it.  The Cake Tin is a good example of that.  No matter how much they now pretend it’s cute, be assured that there remains a deep down resentment about that name by the people who prefer it to be called by the proper sponsorship name, er… Cake Tin.  See?

Read more »

Foreign Policy reports that China has been accused by the Pentagon of conducting cyber attacks on the US.

In its annual report to Congress on Monday, the Pentagon accused the Chinese military of mounting cyber attacks on the U.S government and various defense contractors, marking the first time that the Obama administration has explicitly blamed Chinese officials for the country’s offensive cyber activities. The report, which called the cyber attacks a “serious concern,” said that U.S. government computer systems “continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military.”  Read more »

The Greens hate cars, and what better way to get rid of cars than to remove car parks and parking…that way selfish polluting car owners will suffer.

Read more »

Following on from my post yesterday about rat meat in China, Foreign Policy has helpfully found 5 ways to know you are eating rat meat.

Foreign Policy reached out to North Carolina-based artist Laura Ginn, who, after organizing a rat-themed five-course dinner in New York last year, has become somewhat of a rat meat connoisseur. With her help, we hereby offer you five ways to know you’re eating rat.

1. It smells like rat. Rats secrete an oil onto their skin that gives them their distinct “rodenty” odor. Some compare the smell to that of a warm tortilla, says Ginn, while others compare it to urine. Regardless, it’s distinctive. While it’s true that the odor lessens after the rat is skinned, and again after the rat is cooked, no amount of cooking can ever completely get rid of the smell.

2. It tastes like rat. The oil rats secrete gives them a distinctive taste as well. Ginn describes it as quite pungent and gamey — most similar to raccoon or rabbit. Blended with other meats, rat becomes a lot less distinctive, so you’d have to be rather discerning to notice it.  Read more »

There has been a crack down in China on dodgy meat vendors. Can’t see what the problem is…I’ve blogged about eating guinea pigs before…rats aren’t too far off that. I ate rats in Thailand…off a bbq on the side of the road. Very tasty.

Chinese police have arrested 904 people and seized 20,000 tonnes of illegal products since the turn of the year, in an investigation into “meat-related offences” which revealed fox, mink and rat meat all being passed off as mutton.

Suspects in Baotou produced fake beef and lamb jerky from duck meat and sold it to markets in 15 provinces. Levels of E coli in the product “seriously exceeded standards”, the country’s Public Security Ministry said.  Read more »