Google Confronts China’s “Three Warfares”

Abstract

In early January 2010, Google announced that a computer attack originating from China had penetrated its corporate infrastructure (in mid-December) and stolen information from its computers, most likely source code. The hackers also accessed Gmail accounts of some human-rights activists and infiltrated networks of 33 companies. In April 2010, journalist John Markoff wrote: A person with direct knowledge of investigation now says that losses included one of Google's crown jewels, a password system that controls access by millions of users worldwide to almost all of company's Web services, including e-mail and business applications. The program, code named Gala for Greek goddess of earth, was attacked in a lightning raid taking less than two days last December, person said. (1) China's recent incursions into US military computer networks and Google's cyber systems are of concern when viewed in isolation. They reflect a more serious problem when viewed as part of a short-term goal of conducting preemptive reconnaissance that accommodates a longer-term goal of affecting US military planning or US economy. Many factors indicate that this may be China's goal. Initially, this article examines context within which Google attacks occurred and how Google's response--abandoning censorship in China--was used by Chinese to distract attention from their planned aggression. It then analyzes how a 2003 military regulation assisted China's response to Google's accusations. In short, these procedures are being used all too often by Chinese and are causing US authorities to be more and more intolerant of Chinese behavior. Why America Has Had Enough Journalist Josh Rogin recently listed ten computer incidents that are commonly known in United States through press releases and government agency briefings. All parties damaged by attacks suspect that Chinese are behind these incursions. The ten events are: * 2004: Titan Rain, Federal Bureau of Investigation name for a group of hackers from Guangdong province who stole information from US military labs, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, World Bank, and others. * 2006: A US State Department official in East Asia opens an email that allows hackers to break into computers at US embassies all over region. * 2006: US Representative Frank Wolf's office is attacked. He is an outspoken lawmaker on Chinese human-rights issues and suspects Chinese in attack. * 2006: The US Commerce Department had to discard all of its computers due to targeted attacks originating from China. * 2006: The US Naval War College took all of its computers offline after a major cyber attack in which China emerged as main culprit. * 2007: Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez finds spy software on his computer following a trade mission trip to China. * 2008: The presidential campaigns of both President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain are attacked by Chinese cyber spies. * 2009: Senator Bill Nelson revealed attacks against his computer had been traced to China. * 2009: Toronto researchers find a massive cyber espionage ring using Chinese malware they call Ghostnet. The attacks penetrated 103 countries, and their origin was China. * 2009: Lockheed Martin's F-35 program is hacked and China emerges as main suspect. (2) This list obviously does not include hundreds of thousands of pings (purpose unknown) that US Web sites have received from China over years, nor does it mention other specific incidents. And then along comes Google. How Serious was Google Attack? The attack on Google occurred in December 2009. Some sources state that as many as 33 companies were victims of hack attack. (3) Alan Paller, director of well-known information security training firm known as SANS Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, indicated just how invasive attacks were, noting the odds of 25 biggest companies in California not being fully compromised by Chinese is near zero. …