Harvard PR - we've heard of it but never hear from it
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Google was brought down by Chinese hairdressers
THE WESTERN PRESS appears to be desperate to back up Google's claim that it was hacked by the Chinese government in a Communist plot.
The fairly minor hack was blown up out of all proportion with Google threatening to leave China if the country does not stop spying on it.
However last week the New York Times reported that "unnamed security sources" had tracked the attacks to two Chinese schools, the Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School.
Not deterred with the fact that the attack was not traced to a government department in Beijing, the newspaper claimed that the schools had Chinese military backing and trained computer scientists. It talked about a mysterious Ukrainian professor who provided tips on how to bring down the West using the latest hacking techniques.
Such a Russian and Chinese alliance is exactly the line that is being peddled to the US administration by the country's defence contractors. It was touted publicly at the recent cyber warfare exercise sponsored by the US defence industry promoting why it should get more cash to defend the country from cyber attacks.
However, according to the AFP, it seems that the New York Times did not actually check out the so called spy school and relied on its security industry sources for its colourful descriptions.
The Lanxiang Vocational School was founded in 1984 and has about 20,000 students. Rather than having been founded by the military as a computer spy school, its main focus has been on vocational skills such as cooking, auto repair and hairdressing.
There is a computer science course but it teaches students basic stuff like how to turn their computer on and print a document. It is not run by a mysterious Ukrainian either.
In its entire history the school has packed only 38 students off to the military and that was because they were pretty good at auto repair, cooking and electric welding.
If the Google hack was done at this school then it means that the search engine outfit was not bought down by a crafty Chinese spy, but by a cook, a welder or a hairdresser. It does not say much for Western security, or the US newspaper of record. µ
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Google stated that the hackers used the 'secret' US law enforcement back-door with proper authentication not common exploits. That implies Google's programmers and/or US network monitoring are compromised.
Google stated the hackers targeted only Chinese dissidents and people in contact with Chinese dissidents not credit card numbers, bank info, eBay logins or even WoW accounts.
Now China is refusing to buy US bonds until we let their secret police operate over here. Over the coming weeks you can expect history to be rewritten to say they were sending Valentine's greetings and not preparing mass arrests for Chinese New Year.
The source of the attacks was pinpointed by US agents, not by the inquirer. And yes, it possibly did occur to them to determine the original source, not an intermediate bot/zombie source.
The fact is that the attacks did not require massive know-how, and the tools are available on the net - you don't have to be a government to penetrate poor security.
It is still only the Brits who can write this sort of pomposity-deflating prose.
Here, against the pitiful cyber-sleuthing, leading-edge, deathless bilge of American compu-threat pundit-journalists, drawing from mysterious sources, who, if legitimate, make you wonder where all the billions are going into the NSA, tapped by Google to help them out, and what do we get?
Some Eastern European vocational school instructor, who, if he exists at all, is 30-ish (how'd they find THAT out, and how is THAT supposed to matter?), and perhaps, I might add, is there to teach Ukrainian Easter-egg-coloring, and just in time for Spring.
Welders? Jennifer Beals in "Flashdance."
Cooks? Steven Seagal in "Under Siege".
Hairdessers? Adam Sandler in "You Don't Mess With the Zohan".
Need I say more...?
Not just Google was brought down...
Yahoo was attacked... and, kept quiet...
protecting the interests of the writer of the software, no doubt....
Google, by the way, told Yahoo once it knew what was going on, to get 'Oh, Yeah! that attack, Had one of them a few days ago...' treatment.
Other businesses were similarly attacked the same time as Google.
Noting, just because the messages seem to originate from a specific source...
I must remind you 'experts' that means little to nothing for who or what originated the problem. China controls the lines... teachers... and has many plants in many places to keep track of everyone.
Assumptions are good. Believing what is said, might be good...
But, believing all that is heard is dumb. Believing anything concocted by the main stream media, must be tempered with its record of effluence in stream.
Either it was the hairdressers or telephone sanitisers.
Because it cannot certainly be the middle managers of Chinofrincham. ROFL
Or maybe Google hacked school computers and used them to hack themselves...
or maybe hairdressers from neighbor city hacked these computers and than... ;)
beatcom: No man, they don't teach advanced hacking techniques in a vocational school...
BUT...
Gilbo: ... how can we have any confidence that the attacks really came from this place? In the end, that information was brought by they, and any information that comes from China has a great chance that it may be tampered...
And in the end, EVEN if the attack was tracked down to China, who said they can't had used ip spoofing, so it would be tracked back to that school?
We are talking about hacking and china, the only way it may get more obscure is if we throw in Darth Vader and The Master of the Wizards in it.
While your comment on bought vs. brought is warranted, you need to remember that The Inquirer is written in the UK and not the US. Therefore, their spelling for "defence" is actually correct contrary to your claim.
I'd also point out that while I'm not a spelling or grammatical master, that your post itself is not perfect either as I note two comma errors. For you to complain about something so trivial is not only hypocritical, but absolutely absurd.
Does the Inquirer truly believes that the Google's system could be brought down by a bunch of vocational studies students? If the Chinese vocational students are so good then God help us from the Chinese Computer Science graduates. Or is it more likely that the attack was routed through the school's system and it did not originate there? Why is Inquirer so keen in underestimating the threat posed by hackers wherever there origins may be?
You're correct to point out the mistake in the headline for the article. However, your second point is invalidated by the fact that The Inquirer is a British site, and 'defence' is perfectly acceptable in British English.
Pure comedy genius my friend. I salute you!
Steven Segal played a cook in the Under Seige movies and we all know how the bad guys ended up in these stories.
Never underestimate a cook, you never revover from the horror of a poorly dressed salad.
You keep that tinfoil hat on nice and tight, son.
shame on you, inquirer... you should know better to run crap that clearly is sanctioned by the Chinese propaganda machine. anyone with even a small amount of intelligence realises that any school touting a "vocational" curriculum in this day and age age, offers courses much more advanced in regards to information technology than you seem to be giving them credit for. even the worst schools have computer science curriculums that offer a hell of alot more instruction than just "how to turn on your computer and print a paper". do you think your own people are that stupid, China??
This is just to say 10/10 for the caption article alone.
I love a good pun, keep it up :P
Now you realize how true was the claim that earth was populated by accountants, lawyers and hairdressers - remember Duglas Adams' book ?