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1. DBP
   Member Profile

   Huh!?!?

   Is it just me? Or has the news been taking on a decidedly more surrealistic tone lately?

   According to officials familiar with the plans, the White House is eyeing fines, penalties and other trade restrictions as initial, more-aggressive steps the U.S. would take in response to what top officials say has been an unrelenting campaign of cyberstealing linked to the Chinese government.

   [...]

   The White House plans come after a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm released a torrent of details Monday that tied a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai to years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies. After analyzing breaches that compromised more than 140 companies, Mandiant has concluded that they can be linked People's Liberation Army's Unit 61398.

   http://tinyurl.com/aeoz6g3

   Twenty years ago these guys were working on better ways to burn cow manure. Now they're breakin' into our iPads and stealin' our sheeeyitttt.

    
    

   Posted 3 months ago #         

2. wakeflood
   Member Profile

   No, it's not you. And yes, this is now the state of affairs, and not just in cyberspace.

   China knows where they're going and they have the political will to get there. They have the advantage of not having to care what their people think. Now that they own all sorts of assets and IOU's from people like us, they don't have to care much about what anyone else thinks, either.

   Here's just a short list of what they're up to:

   Currency manipulation.
   Buying up all the hi-tech minerals in the world.
   Giving money to lots of 3rd and 2nd world countries that they'll eventually use as leverage.
   Buying physical infrastructure assets in 1st world countries.
   Militarizing space program.
   Building the largest hi-tech manufacturing base in the world.
   Putting 60,000 trained engineers into their economy every year, to our few thousand.

   And here we sit, arguing about tax rates and assault weapons bans, and contemplating our navels. Whatever American "Exceptionalism" was, is a distant memory. China wins the future cuz we took our eye off it.

   Posted 3 months ago #         

3. wakeflood
   Member Profile

   And when we bring up the uncomfortable issue of hacking us, they'll respond, "Wasn't us! And even if it was, whatcha' gonna' do about it??" As they belly laugh at our impotence...

   Posted 3 months ago #         

4. wakeflood
   Member Profile

   We could debate the question, "How did we let this happen??" all day long. The obvious notion that we got fat and happy and lazy and rested on our laurels after we built the Empire in the 1950s/60's, comes to mind.

   But the lessons of the Oil Embargo and other wakeup calls that went unheeded and the scourge of Supply Side Voodoonomics turned our visions from large to small. And here we sit, a hollowed out mess, without the will to finance our own future success for the want of making a few Masters of the Universe even richer.

   Shame on us.

   Posted 3 months ago #         

5. wakeflood
   Member Profile

   We allowed the equation to be flipped. The good of the (greedy, self-righteous, unapologetic, self-ordained) few outweigh the needs of the (hypnotized, deferring, beaten down, disorganized, confused) many.

   Posted 3 months ago #         

6. DBP
   Member Profile

   Personally, I blame my neighbor, Nathan Dreiblatt.

   Ten years ago Nathan took his wife on a river cruise in China, and when he got back he realized that he'd left his Powerbook behind at the Beijing airport.

   Damn thing must've fallen into the hands of the dreaded People's Liberation Army, Unit 61398. Once the PLA figured out how to use a Mac, it was just a matter of time before they were hacking into the Pentagon and driving down the dollar by buying a bunch of crap they couldn't afford on eBay.

   "Nathan," his wife said, "you're a putz!"

      

   Posted 3 months ago #         

7. JoB
   Member Profile

   DBP

   In their rush to make more money more quickly many major US corporations gave the Chinese far more than a laptop or two.

   I will cede to your neighbor's wife's wisdom
   your neighbor may be a putz...

   but this putz isn't to blame for the dissemination of technology that makes today's cyber crimes possible.

   Posted 3 months ago #         

8. waynster
   Member Profile

   

   I was going to say the same thing job... when you give kids the keys just look what they unlock and drive away with and its not just the car....... sad thing is everyone going in new they would do just what they did its not just china there are more countrys doing it to us....

   Posted 3 months ago #         

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