It seems like it would be SO easy to carry out a false flag attack with computers. What stops a random malicious person from popping a few boxes in Country X and using them to base his attack? And if Country X was engaged in bad behavior, why wouldn't they take a similar step?
Now, if it's true that the attacks focused on human rights workers that gave China trouble, the claim is a bit more substantial, although it's not hard to imagine tacking those names onto your list to disguise what was really important in your unrelated attack.
However, attributing attacks to Anonymous really makes my head spin. By definition, Anonymous doesn't even exist as a group, it literally means anonymous in most contexts, yet the media report as if they're saying something other than 'unknown'.
Craziness, and as far as I see, details about the foundation of these claims are never released. How the hell does Google know the Chinese attackers weren't proxy boxes?!
I think we should keep in mind that the damage done to Google's business interests as a result of this conflict is massive. That's why I tend to think that the data they see leaves little room for other interpretations.
> By definition, Anonymous doesn't even exist as a group, it literally means anonymous in most contexts, yet the media report as if they're saying something other than 'unknown'.
"Anonymous" doesn't mean anything more than "unknown names" - it doesn't imply "doesn't exist as a group".
Moreover, "anonymous" is the name that they've chosen. It describes some of their attributes, but not all, and certainly doesn't define them. (If they called themselves "superheroes", would you think that they could fly?)
Interesting to see Chinese government (assuming this piece went through the usual vetting process of the propaganda dept) respond publicly to a companies blog.
I often wonder why Baidu does not receive as much press, as it has experienced astronomical growth, and is clearly a strong(er?) contender in terms of users.
I'm sure it does in China. There are other foreign mega-corps like this that you probably don't hear much about in the US, specially, Tencent comes to mind.
If it's just a perception of the west why not tell the Chinese people about Tienanmen square? Perhaps then the Chinese people would have similar 'perceptions'
Most of the chinese people I have spoken with know most of the facts around Tienanmen square. It is the constant pro-communist propaganda that shapes their views. Just as constant pro-west propaganda shapes ours.
Want to shoot a war movie? Need access to military assets? You're going to have to run the movie by the Pentagon first to make sure it portrays "The Right Side of the Story".
Also the US has tax credits for scripts which incorporate messages in support of the war on drugs. This is why you see ridiculous bullshit on CSI like kids dying after falling off a roof while high on.. GASP.. MARIJUANA!
Land of the free, home of the brainwashed. This is why I try not to consume very much mainstream media. It's not exactly on the level with denial of historical events - people wouldn't stand for that. It has to be more subtle, and it is, and it works.
Oh right. I find this so transparent that I find it difficult to even begin to use the word propaganda. But I could be dangerously out of touch with "the common man" or whatever.
Basically, if someone tries to tell me something is bad and it's not a paper on PubMed, I don't really buy it. But I guess most people believe secondary sources.
>> You're going to have to run the movie by the Pentagon first to make sure it portrays "The Right Side of the Story".
You mean like Avatar? Or Redacted? Stop-Loss? Battle For Haditha? Green Zone? Or any of a host of other war movies made by Hollywood in the last 40 years that trash the US military to varying degrees. Go further back in time and you get movies like Casualties of War, Apocalypse Now, etc.
You accuse others of lying in the service of their politics, all the while you engage in that very thing. The term for this is projection.
You forgot about: Need access to military assets? Avatar had zero need for military assets.
The most effective form of censorship is self censorship. Let's not say really bad things about X, because I don't want to burn any bridges. There is a popular image of the US military has little to do with reality. Consider the number of times an active army US soldier is portrayed as raping someone in a movie vs the other guy's army. Or the extremely high unemployment rate rate for soldiers you only serve one tour.
So you are saying that if you want to shoot a film about the army killing and raping people the Pentagon won't help you out by letting you borrow some tanks for some of the scenes? You could still use replicas, CGI, or even borrow a privately owned tank so I don't see this issue.
The reason you see a positive portrayal of the US soldier in movies is because a large percentage of the audience either is or if friends with someone who is a soldier. So unless you movie is explicitly about evil US soldiers there is no profit to be had in portraying the US army in a negative light.
Sorry, I was not clear. The military uses a light touch to shape perceptions, but the most powerful force is still indirect censorship.
Filmmakers don't offend people without gaining something from it. It's not just a question of the military + audience but also producers and actors etc. Also, sound effects people don't bother using actual hoof beats when people are so used to hearing cocoanuts and writers / producers don't challenge perceptions unless that's their direct goal.
PS: The DoD does not try and get people to think that most US soldiers are Captain America wannabes. The goal is closer to: "Well trained, Deadly, Loyal, Young, Americans, that need all the support they can get." For various reasons they would rather be seen as crazy than infective.
News constantly portraying non-western countries as 3rd world, or axis of evil? Or terrorists? For no better reason than their interests do not align with various western countries.
Watch much of Fox News? Even if you don't, a lot of people do.
More obvious case: The reasons for going to war in Iraq were entirely agg-prop, that was later proved to be false.
We "the west" don't have an explicit "Propaganda department" like communist countries generally do. But our media, and government still use propaganda to control peoples opinions.
> We "the west" don't have an explicit "Propaganda department" like communist countries generally do. But our media, and government still use propaganda to control peoples opinions.
And I'll be happy to tell you of the pro-government (not pro communist) propaganda. I could go on for days and weeks, seriously I could. The shit never ends.
Democracy BS: US went to Iraq and Afghanistan to teach them democracy. Meanwhile, they make their own citizens take their shoes off in their airports. Go figure!!!!
If you ever had a look at PCs in China, you would know why. You get copied Windows CDs for a few cents everywhere, no doubt pre-loaded with all sorts of virii and trojans. The botnets in China must be massive.
I got a Google warning of my gmail being access from the Jinan province back in January with also a break-in of twitter account. Since my security changes no break-ins.
The Peoples daily article didn't deny the threat, it objected with the obvious implication google were making about the hacks originating from within the government.
Why did google choose to publicise the event at all? surely that only tells the attackers to find a new attack vector (rather than thinking there existing vector is still okay).
From the horses mouth: "we believe that being open about these security issues helps users better protect their information online."
The attacks relied on the victim's naivety and lack of knowledge. If you read the blog post [1], I think it's pretty clear that the purpose was to educate users on how to improve their security when using Google products.
You can educate, without expressing specific details of the attackers.
The usual practice is to warn of potential issues, not publicise a specific attack, and then say "beware!" -- In fact the article didn't even give the common advice of 'check url, https, etc' to avoid phishing.
Nitpicking : Jinan is a city, not a province. It's the capital of the Shandong province.
More relevant, it's one of the three largest military centers in China, which I'm guessing is why the attacks stem from there. This does lend credence to the idea of a government sanctioned operation.
However, Jinan is also the home to one of the top computer science schools and software engineering colleges in China, so it could be just student hackers I guess (though I'm not convinced).
It seems like it would be SO easy to carry out a false flag attack with computers. What stops a random malicious person from popping a few boxes in Country X and using them to base his attack? And if Country X was engaged in bad behavior, why wouldn't they take a similar step?
Now, if it's true that the attacks focused on human rights workers that gave China trouble, the claim is a bit more substantial, although it's not hard to imagine tacking those names onto your list to disguise what was really important in your unrelated attack.
However, attributing attacks to Anonymous really makes my head spin. By definition, Anonymous doesn't even exist as a group, it literally means anonymous in most contexts, yet the media report as if they're saying something other than 'unknown'.
Craziness, and as far as I see, details about the foundation of these claims are never released. How the hell does Google know the Chinese attackers weren't proxy boxes?!