Posted on 11/06/2008 10:18:13 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
This is something I can’t figure out.
Right now there’s a young Brit extradited for trial for hacking into the US Military looking for information on UFOs. He was quite honest about it, to the point of leaving messages all over the systems telling the military how he got in and asking why the system was so open.
And, yes, he’s up on an anti-terror charge.
I’m an IT security consultant in the UK who works in the field of identity and access management, and across the industry, the US military network is regarded as an “open network” because its border control is so poorly policed.
I was stunned by the reaction expressed on our news networks, by the American Defense spokesman when this guy was arrested.
One of our MPs suggested to him that it was a stroke of luck that the lad was a UFO-obsessed script kiddie with no real technical knowledge hacking into their systems after he told them who he was and where he lived... rather than an Al Qaeda cell doing it covertly with the intention of doing real damage.
The reply was to the effect of, “it doesn’t matter that he was able to do it, the thing is he shouldn’t have done it”.
Wow. I guess that’ll tell Al-Qaeda and China.
“Yes, we know any old script kiddie can hack into the Pentagon, and it’s been common knowledge since the early 80s that anyone with a modem or an internet connection can dial in anytime they want, but if we catch you doing it we’ll throw the book at you.”
http://blog.barofintegrity.us/2007/12/15/republican-debaters-ignore-china-threat.aspx
Excerpt:
Just as in the Democratic debate, China was mentioned in the Republican debate only in connection with toxic toys imported from China. It was said by Rep. Hunter that China makes, by unfair trade, a lot of money, which China needs. Said Hunter: “They are clearly [!] arming.”
I nearly fainted: to recognize that China is “clearly[!] arming”! No other presidential candidate reached aloud such a horrible, cynical, dangerous conclusion!
The word “clearly” is worth comment. The fact is that the dictatorship of China can conceal the development of nano weapons able to annihilate the United States (or the West as a whole), just as the United States concealed the Manhattan Project’s “atom bombs” until two of them were dropped on Japan. But much weaponization of space or oceans cannot be concealed and hence the word “clearly” — China is “clearly arming.”
For example, last year, a former U.S. top naval official said that China’s navy is to consist of 600 battleships, while the U.S. navy is to consist of 150 battleships. Of course, battleships on high seas cannot be concealed.
McCain defined as “isolationists” those “who were for bringing our troops home from Iraq.” But what about those who do not even mention the “China threat”? Surely China is more dangerous than was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with his (mythical) “weapons of mass destruction.”
It is forgotten that China began to test its nuclear weapons in 1964. And today “nuclear weapons” are obsolete as offensive weapons (due to Mutual Assured Destruction), and China is developing post-nuclear (such as nano) super-weapons.
Unwilling to notice the military development of China, McCain and all the other Republican presidential candidates at the Nov. 28 debate, except Rep. Hunter, are not just isolationists, but suicidal fugitives from the geostrategic reality of today’s world.
Well, in the Democratic debate, even that four-word sentence that Hunter uttered was not heard.
Indeed, of all presidential candidates in the CNN debates, Duncan Hunter is the only one who can be taken seriously. To my inquiry “Duncan Hunter on the China threat,” Yahoo! yielded 2,760,000 items, and the second item was: “Duncan Hunter Speaks to Nevada about Chinese Threat.”
Not to understand or not to admit that a dictatorship whose population exceeds that of the United States more than four times poses a mortal threat is more irresponsible than it was to fail to understand in 1938 that the dictatorship of Germany was a threat.
It was Hitler himself who cured the free West of that blindness by seizing the “rump” of Czechoslovakia, swallowing Poland and France, fighting Britain furiously, grabbing Russia up to the Volga, and declaring war on the United States.
>>>Romney’s attempts to sell 3-COM to the PLA
Bain Capital, which was co-founded by former partner Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a partner, would own 83.5 percent of the shares and appoint the other eight members.
Rep. Dingell among lawmakers tightening scrutiny of 3Com sale
A congressional committee is investigating the purchase of 3Com Corp. by a consortium that includes a Chinese company, intensifying scrutiny of the deal.
In a letter sent Friday, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich, said there is “growing apprehension in the Congress” about the security implications of the transaction. Dingell chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the senior Republican on the panel, and two other members also signed the letter sent to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Network equipment maker 3Com agreed in late September to be purchased by private equity firm Bain Capital Management and Huawei Technologies for $2.2 billion. Bain would own 83.5 percent of the company, while Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company, would own 16.5 percent.
Huawei’s alleged ties with China’s military have raised security concerns on Capitol Hill and in some government agencies. Last fall, 14 senators alleged the company is the “preferred provider” of telecom equipment to China’s People’s Liberation Army, in a letter to a Treasury official.
The transaction is under review by a government panel charged with scrutinizing foreign investment for national security concerns. The 12-agency panel, called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States or CFIUS, is chaired by Treasury and includes the Defense, Homeland Security and Justice departments.
Bain Capital, in a statement Friday, said it is “engaged in a constructive dialogue with CFIUS regarding our proposed acquisition of 3Com Corp.,” and working with U.S. officials.
(snip)
Dingell’s letter cited reports that China’s military has tried to hack into the Pentagon’s computer network and said such actions make security concerns more relevant because 3Com develops network security software.
“Given that 3Com Corporation manufactures communications network components — some of which it supplies to the Pentagon, including firewall technology — this transaction raises significant concerns about its potential effect on the national security of the United States,” the letter said.
(snip)
http://blog.barofintegrity.us/2008/01/01/mitt-romneys-new-tiger-song.aspx
China Angles to Buy 3Com
Excerpt:
According to the CIA, Huawei was responsible for the installation of an advanced fiber-optic air defense network in Iraq during Saddam’s brutal rule. The Huawei network, NATO code-named “Tiger Song,” was used to shoot down allied aircraft flying patrol over the Iraqi skies.
The network was installed in violation of an U.N. embargo. Worse still, the air defense network was paid for by the corrupt oil-for-food program which send cash to Huawei that was intended to feed starving Iraqi children.
Despite its history of killing American soldiers — it is Huawei’s teaming with Bain and Goldman Sachs that has enabled the Chinese company to arrange the buyout of 3Com. The Bain/Goldman/Huawei team has influence inside the highest political circles.
For example, current Republican candidate Mitt Romney has links to Bain. Gov. Romney enjoyed a successful career at Bain, helping to amass over a quarter of a billion dollars in his own personal fortune. Romney may have left the company in 2001, but he and his family still own a significant stake in the firm through his blind trust, which according to the Washington Post earned him $7 million to $15 million during the last year.
Bain associates, employees and friends have also been very generous to Gov. Romney’s campaign for the White House. Bain employees have donated over $190,000 to Romney, making the firm one of his largest sources of political cash. This amount does not include the efforts of former and current Bain partners and executives of companies Romney bought who are also raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.
All these financial ties to Bain bring into question the possible conflict of interest that Romney faces. So far, Gov. Romney has refused to comment on the Bain deal. Repeated calls to the Romney campaign were not returned.
Excerpt:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG334.pdf
A New Direction for China’s Defense Industry
Huawei Shenzhen Technology Company. Huawei was founded in 1988 by Ren Zhengfei, a former director of the PLA General Staff Department’s Information Engineering Academy, which is responsible for telecom research for the Chinese military. Huawei maintains deep ties with the Chinese military, which serves a multi-faceted role as an important customer, as well as Huawei’s political patron and research and development partner. Both the government and the military tout Huawei as a national champion, and the company is currently China’s largest, fastest-growing, and most impressive telecommunications-equipment manufacturer...
In analyzing the dynamics of the IT sector, it is first necessary to divide the defense portion of the IT sector into two related but distinct categories. The first includes those subsectors providing the PLA with commercial-off-the-shelf IT systems, such as routers, switches, and computers, which have become increasingly central to the digitization of the U.S. military. Key companies in this category include such “red chips” (the Chinese equivalent of U.S. blue-chip companies) as Huawei, Zhongxing, Datang, Julong, and the Wuhan Research Institute, all of which are private companies spun off from state research institutes that enjoy national-champion preferences within the system. They are marked by new facilities in dynamic locales, such as southern and eastern China, a high-tech workforce, and infusions of foreign technology. These firms are not obligated to provide a social safety net for thousands of unemployable workers and their families in rural areas. Instead, they hire and fire staff using market-based incentives and stock options...
The two most important categories of Chinese IT firms, particularly in dealings with foreign multinationals, are telecommunications equipment and electronics. Publicly, the major players in telecommunications—Huawei, Datang, Zhongxing, and Great Dragon (Julong)—appear to be independent, private-sector actors. By contrast, many of the electronics firms are grouped under ostensibly commercially oriented conglomerates, such as China Electronics Corporation. However, one does not need to dig too deeply to discover that many of these electronics companies are the public face for, sprang from, or are significantly engaged in joint research with state research institutes under the Ministry of Information Industry, defense-industrial corporations, or the military. Indeed, each of the “four tigers” of the Chinese telecommunications equipment market (Huawei, Zhongxing, Datang, and Julong) originated from a different part of the existing state telecommunications research and development infrastructure, often from the internal telecommunications apparatus of different ministries or the military. These connections provide channels for personnel transfers, commercialization of state-sponsored R&D (”spin-off”), and militarization of commercial R&D (”spin-on”)...
Huawei has also become the most successful Chinese exporter of equipment, entering international markets in 1996. According to one source, “For the future, Huawei wants to be the Cisco of the PRC, but also is ambitious to become a global player.” The company is rapidly penetrating Africa, Russia, India, and many other areas ignored by Western telcos...
As part of its backbone infrastructure work, Huawei supplied secure fiber optic communications networks widely within the PLA, its missile networks and fire control/command and control systems, and would supply a variant, Tiger Song, to Iraq prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (during the 1990s) which greatly complicated US interdiction as previous Iraqi anti-air comm had been interceptable, targetable transmissions. The PRC was one of many UN embargo violators (which included our allies France and Germany as well as Russia)
http://www.afpc.org/crm/crm368.shtml
The Chinese-built “Tiger Song” fiber-optic air defense system used by Iraq is comprised of American-made technology obtained with a waiver from the Clinton Administration… The advanced fiber-optic system was a result of the friendship between General Ding Henggao, Commander of the Chinese Army military research bureau COSTIND [Commission on Science and Industry for National Defense] and then-US Defense Secretary William Perry...
In 1994, Professor John Lewis of Stanford University… teamed with General Ding to buy an advanced AT&T fiber-optic communication system for “civilian use” inside China. According to the Far Eastern Economic Review, [Perry] wrote a letter to US Government export control officials, favoring the fiber-optic export to China. The venture was called “Hua Mei.” The Chinese part of the venture was run by the newly formed firm, “Galaxy New Technology,” with General Ding’s wife, Madame Nie Li, as the head of the project.
With the support of Perry and the advice of Prof. Lewis, AT&T shipped the secure communications system directly to a Chinese Army unit, using Galaxy technology as a front. The so-called “civilian” Galaxy firm was packed with senior Chinese military officers… Madame Nie was not only the wife of General Ding, but actually Lt. General Nie Lie of the Chinese Army. Galaxy Director and president was Mr. Deng Changgru, also known as Lt. Colonel Deng Changru, head of the Chinese Army communcations corps. Co-General manager of Galaxy, “Mr.” Xie Zhichao, also known as Lt. Colonel Xie Zhichao, director of the Chinese Army’s Electronics Design Bureau…
“The Chinese army’s Electronics Bureau… modified the American fiber-optics communication system, changing it into a secure air-defense system. The Chinese military then exported the newly modified system to Iraq. The Iraqi air defense network, NATO code-named “Tiger Song,” is made of US and French fiber-optic parts modified by the Chinese military.”
In 2001, Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles, guided by Tiger Song, regularly target US fighter planes. And following the recent US-British attack on the system, Chinese military engineers are reportedly repairing damages to the system.
HUNTER CALLS ON ROMNEY TO OPPOSE BAIN PARTNERSHIP WITH CHINESE COMPANY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 2, 2007
CONTACT: Gary Becks (619) 334-1655, dlhunter08@yahoo.com
San Diego, CA - - - Presidential candidate and current Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Duncan Hunter, today called on former Governor Mitt Romney to send a “clear statement” to the leadership of the company he founded, Bain Capital, to terminate a proposed business deal with a controversial Chinese corporation seeking to acquire U.S. defense contractor 3COM. Bain Capital is attempting to form a business arrangement with Huawei Corporation, a Chinese corporation founded by an officer of the Peoples Liberation Army of Communist China, which faces allegations of assisting Saddam Hussein in the targeting of U.S. aircraft and in helping the Taliban develop surveillance equipment.
“I am extremely concerned that Governor Romney’s company would tout a highly suspect Chinese corporation as a strategic partner,” stated Hunter. “Forming a business partnership with a corporation known to have direct ties with terrorists and dictators while, at the same time, openly seeking to acquire a major U.S. corporation that performs vital cyber security work for the Department of Defense, can only be characterized as irresponsible.”
A resolution has been introduced in Congress, H.Res. 730, which states; “The preponderance of publicly available evidence clearly suggests that as currently structured, the proposed transaction involving Huawei threatens the national security of the United States and should not be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States .” A copy of this resolution is provided.
Hunter stated in his letter to Governor Romney, “…while it is true that you no longer control Bain Capital, the contributions you have received from its principals as its founding member indicate that your influence within the company remains strong.
“Further, while the Committee on Foreign Investment has yet to rule on the Huawei transaction, this corporation’s connection to Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and the Army of Communist China should clearly disqualify them from becoming, in the words of your former company, “a strategic partner” in acquiring a U.S. firm such as 3COM, which performs vital cyber-security work for the U.S. Department of Defense.
“This letter is a request that you immediately issue a statement of policy that this transaction should be terminated on the grounds of national security. Please let me know what you intend to do.”
A copy of Congressman Hunter’s letter, as well as two articles regarding Huawei acquisition efforts are provided. Media are encouraged to contact Gary Becks at (619) 334-1655 for additional information or to arrange an interview with Hunter.
# # #
Hunter for President, Inc. 9340 Fuerte Drive La Mesa, California 91941 United States
“Peace Through Strength” The need for military, economic and diplomatic strength.
Thank You
Sean Cole Midwest Regional Director IA, MO, IL, IN, KY, OH, and WV Hunter for President 08 Cell Number - 317-414-3424 Office Number 317-565-1392 Yahoo Instant Messenger: dhfundraiser
marking. thanks for posting.
>>President Hussein
PINO.
Until he acts like president of the U.S.A., I will refer to him only as “Chairman” Obama.
I should also add that China and 3Com got around the scuttling.
http://blog.barofintegrity.us/2008/04/30/3com-gets-around-cfius-ruling.aspx
CFIUS ruled that 3Com couldn’t enter into a take over bid with Huawei Technologies due to National Security issues. But, that doesn’t seem to have stopped them. Now 3Com has named Robert Mao as their new CEO. Robert Mao will be based out of China.
That’s right. IF you can’t sell yourself like a whore to the chicoms, you can always give yourself away.
Tech ping.
Why in the world are these systems on the public network? In the commercial sector the good stuff is usually on a private network with no access to the outside world.
Hmm, good insight, Jaguar. I never thought of that.
They didn’t need to during the Clintoon administration. He just handed everything over to them.
It's already like that for classified data.
You could be right.
“Chinese hack into White House network”
But...haven’t you heard?? Obama is President!! Who cares about some silly computer stuff??
It’s just gotten started.
Sorry to say, but Romney / Bain Capital failed buyout of 3Com with necessary participation of Huawei (because it was real manufacturing arm of 3Com’s equipment anyway) was simply a case of political meddling and not a technology security issue - 3Com has been trying to unload Tipping Point firewall IPS division ever since and its stock has been cut by two thirds almost immediately (not as a result of recent market crash) before slight recovery. With a buyout, TP could have been simply separated from new entity, if so desired, but there was no top secret in its algorithms.
Please see my posts with full history and explanation on this at the time when it was happening.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1973690/posts?page=28#28
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1973690/posts?page=34#34
The company is now a shadow of its former self and could have been helped by buyout. Bain Capital used CFIUS decision to get out of buyout and refused any possible negotiations of modified structure. And, as you can see, “Chairman” [Robert Y. L.] Mao of H3C (Huawei and 3Com JV) and current CEO of 3Com is located in China, because that’s where the development and manufacturing of actual equipment (mostly having little to do with security beyond standard integrated protocols in any networking / IP equipment) actually takes place.
“I’ve” done nothing but copy and paste what has been reported. If you have another story, you need to contact the authors’ for a retraction. I’ve not seen one.
Funny how CFIUS has taken action based on what I’ve copied and not you.
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