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View Full Version : I hate hackers and this furthers my hate



jakncoke
03-08-2008, 11:45 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/07/china.hackers/index.html


ZHOUSHAN, China (CNN) -- They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.
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The leader of these Chinese hackers says there "is always a weakness" on networks that allows cyber break-ins.
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In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government -- a claim the Beijing government denies.

"No Web site is one hundred percent safe. There are Web sites with high-level security, but there is always a weakness," says Xiao Chen, the leader of this group.

"Xiao Chen" is his online name. Along with his two colleagues, he does not want to reveal his true identity. The three belong to what some Western experts say is a civilian cyber militia in China, launching attacks on government and private Web sites around the world. Video Watch hackers' clandestine Chinese operation »

If there is a profile of a cyber hacker, these three are straight from central casting -- young and thin, with skin pale from spending too many long nights in front of a computer.

One hacker says he is a former computer operator in the People's Liberation Army; another is a marketing graduate; and Xiao Chen says he is a self-taught programmer.

"First, you must know about the Web site you want to attack. You must know what program it is written with," says Xiao Chen. "There is a saying, 'Know about both yourself and the enemy, and you will be invincible.'"

CNN decided to withhold the address of these hackers' Web site, but Xiao Chen says it has been operating for more than three years, with 10,000 registered users. The site offers tools, articles, news and flash tutorials about hacking.

Private computer experts in the United States from iDefense Security Intelligence, which provides cybersecurity advice to governments and Fortune 500 companies, say the group's site "appears to be an important site in the broader Chinese hacking community."

Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks of on-again, off-again e-mail exchanges. When they finally agreed, CNN was told to meet them on the island of Zhoushan, just south of Shanghai and a major port for China's navy.

The apartment has cement floors and almost no furniture. What they do have are three of the latest computers. They are cautious when it comes to naming the Web sites they have hacked.

But eventually Xiao Chen claims two of his colleagues -- not the ones with him in the room -- have hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information, although he wouldn't specify what was gleaned. CNN has no way to confirm if his claim is true.
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"They would not publicize this," he says of someone who hacks the U.S. Defense Department. "It is very sensitive."

This week, the Pentagon said computer networks in the United States, Germany, Britain and France were hit last year by what they call "multiple intrusions," many of them originating from China.

At a congressional hearing in Washington last week, administration officials testified that the government's cyber initiative has fallen far short of what is required. Most alarming, the officials said, there has never been a full damage assessment of federal agency networks. Video Watch Pentagon bans Google from bases »

"We are here today because we must do more," said Robert Jamison, a top official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Defending the federal system in its current configuration is a significant challenge."

U.S. officials have been cautious not to directly accuse the Chinese military or its government of hacking into its network.

But David Sedney, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, says, "The way these intrusions are conducted are certainly consistent with what you would need if you were going to actually carry out cyber warfare."

Beijing hit back at that, denying such an allegation and calling on the United States to provide proof. "If they have any evidence, I hope they would provide it. Then, we can cooperate on this issue," Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a regular press briefing this week.

But Xiao Chen says after the alleged Pentagon attack, his colleagues were paid by the Chinese government. Again, CNN has no way to independently confirm if that is true.

His allegations brought strenuous denials from Beijing. "I am telling you honestly, the Chinese government does not do such a thing," Qin said.

But if Xiao Chen is telling the truth, it appears his colleagues launched a freelance attack -- not initiated by Beijing, but paid for after the fact. "These hacker groups in my opinion are not agents of the Chinese state," says James Mulvenon from the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, which works with the U.S. intelligence community.

"They are sort of useful idiots for the Beijing regime."

He adds, "These young hackers are tolerated by the regime provided that they do not conduct attacks inside of China."
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One of the biggest problems experts say is trying to prove where a cyber attack originates from, and that they say allows hackers like Xiao Chen to operate in a virtual world of deniability.

And across China, there could be thousands just like him, all trying to prove themselves against some of the most secure Web sites in the world


I hate hackers and this furthers it. They should be using there smartness for good things in society not hacking sites that are made by innocent ppl

rukisuto
03-08-2008, 11:51 AM
Agreed.
Why would they be publicizing themselves like this anyways?
If they're claiming to have hacked into the Pentagon and whatnot.

LiNuX
03-08-2008, 12:00 PM
wow they gained access into the pentagon? thats crazy

i wonder if the US govt will take action to kill them lol, thats what they usually do when they see a thread, declares war for no reason

crazy!!!

jakncoke
03-08-2008, 12:07 PM
US should send a couple teams of elite seals to Zhoushan and see what's up.

Jaykub
03-08-2008, 12:43 PM
This is giving the people that have skillz as javascript and HTML bad names. But there bad

glenofimaal
03-08-2008, 01:25 PM
it's possible to hack the pentagon :eek:

why would they want an interview?

Ubernerd
03-08-2008, 03:38 PM
OK:

1: Not all hackers are bad

2: Of course they did, the Chinese military has a special division for hackers

Also, lol at the Pentagon

jakncoke
03-08-2008, 03:42 PM
Not all are bad, so yeah I over generalized but anyone that fits into the.... hack sites, hack comps , code viruses/spyware..ect is who I hate. Seriously those need to gtfo of earth.

Riku-Nara
03-08-2008, 07:00 PM
Dang.......that's........bad?
i think?
but kinda awesome. (in the fact that that's actually possible, not that it happened)
and they probably told the press all this stuff cuz they knew they we're gonna be doing some hard time.
Going out in style i guess.

LemonRising
03-08-2008, 11:36 PM
The government are fools to think that any information that is connected to a network is safe, no matter how much they've tried to protect it.

As they said, no site is safe.

haha, and there's a difference between coders and hackers. And crackers as well ;p

This story interests me, really.

LiNuX
03-09-2008, 12:46 AM
The government are fools to think that any information that is connected to a network is safe, no matter how much they've tried to protect it.


they should print out these information on paper and delete it from the hardware lol

safe and secure!

LemonRising
03-09-2008, 12:51 AM
Lol, Paper's the way to go!

I can see all the jobs opening up because of all the manual labor it'll take to file and search for stuff.

LiNuX
03-09-2008, 11:14 AM
Lol, Paper's the way to go!

I can see all the jobs opening up because of all the manual labor it'll take to file and search for stuff.

here you go, its good for the economy too

i think i just suggested the best way to decrease the unemployment rates in the country lol :D

jakncoke
03-09-2008, 04:29 PM
The best way to decrease unemployment is get lazy unskilled ppl.. not lazy and skilled. Seriously in my area there over 100 skilled jobs and like 10 non skilled but the majority population is lazy and unskilled and although there is programs to get grants to go school or get on the job training ppl just simply don't know it exists.

benrules100
01-24-2010, 11:03 PM
it's possible to hack the pentagon :eek:

why would they want an interview?

that was my the same reaction i had haha.

Freemymind93
01-25-2010, 06:48 PM
Seeing as the leader of this group said that there is a weakness to each site, I think it'd be cool if someone hacked their site. :laugh:

youthism_is_me
01-27-2010, 12:10 PM
do you hate them becuase you cant do what they do becuase some times what they due can be very helpfull

BobTD
02-23-2010, 03:31 PM
I think they agreed to the interview thinking it was one thing, and it turned into another when they claimed responsibility for attacking the pentagon.

How would a major News Network, ever CNN, have even an inkling about a possible pentagon breach. They stumbled across that story and something was lost. There was some other reason for the interview and I believe it was that groups fault for shooting off their mouth.

I would be very interested in finding out what direction this story would be spun if not for the juicy pentagon claim. I bet they where going to try and profit from the interview by proposing white hatter operations as a paid service.

For people not familiar with the term, white-hatter and black-hatters where the two names for people who hacked for the challenge (and tried to make money that way) and the people who wanted to cause damage. Unfortunately for white-hatters in America, hacking a site to prove it needed better security was very easy to prosecute for. And so white-hatting became a very uncommon term because all hackers where thought of as malicious from a legal perspective.

I really don't see a distinction with good or bad, what I see is a class of usually very smart and skilled people who should be filling very well paid government positions by providing security solutions. But unfortunately most countries are not run by the best and brightest. They are run by the wealthy, politically connected, or fathered in from lower positions over time. There are really very few cases where the people with the talent get the right job for them.

If I had to guess what happened. The story probably started out as a piece about hackers, and how their talents could be better spent. And the group probably saw a way to further their "carrier" but it ended up with some bragging that was to good for a journalist not to capitalize on.

Morticia
02-23-2010, 04:51 PM
do you hate them becuase you cant do what they do becuase some times what they due can be very helpfull

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Please try harder at the English speeaaakingz.
People are never jealous of hackers, I mean, normal people with lives. Even if these hackers do this imaginary hacker vigilante/somehow helpful stuff you speak of, that's not what he was even talking about.

Did you even read the OP?!?! (OP = Original post. There I taught you something.)
Stop posting crap without reading the thread's content first!

Good lord.