U.S. to Charge Chinese Army Personnel With Cyberspying

The Department of Justice on Monday will announce charges it has filed against several individuals in China’s People’s Liberation Army, accusing them of stealing trade secrets from American companies and marking the first time the United States has charged government employees with economic espionage, according to law enforcement officials.

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The announcement about the Chinese will most likely increase the tensions between American and Chinese officials, who in recent years have accused each other in public and in private of using military assets to launch hacks and cyberattacks.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/us/us-to-charge-chinese-workers-with-cyberspying.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

Bold move, not a bold move? I am interested in what this does to trade and relations. Especially since China is the largest foreign holder of US Debt.

Blue_State said:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/us/us-to-charge-chinese-workers-with-cyberspying.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

Bold move, not a bold move? I am interested in what this does to trade and relations. Especially since China is the largest foreign holder of US Debt.

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Do you think it will cause any real problems at this stage? It is only one in a long list of irritants between the two countries and everyone knows that there are spies out there.

joG said:

Do you think it will cause any real problems at this stage? It is only one in a long list of irritants between the two countries and everyone knows that there are spies out there.

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Eric Holder is about to read the claims. Depending on who they name, yes, maybe, no. At some point people stop name calling and either fight or go home. Economically, both countries benefit from each other.

This will likely lead to an interesting game of tit-for-tat.

"You're spying on us'"
"You're spying on us too!"

Blue_State said:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/us/us-to-charge-chinese-workers-with-cyberspying.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

Bold move, not a bold move? I am interested in what this does to trade and relations. Especially since China is the largest foreign holder of US Debt.

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The NSA is listening to every phone call in the World and sharing the data with USA Corporate interests and is stating that if the Chinese do it, it is illegal. Do I detect a note of hypocrisy in the message? If China decides the USA is abusing its' position of power and bails on a few hundred billion dollars of US Treasuries, just as a taste test to see what happens, do you think the USA gov't might wake up and smell the coffee? The USA is broke and military power is the only alternative to support our "fiat currency" long term. Is that what is going on? Sometimes I think US foreign policy is created by registered and accredited morons and at other times I am sure of that.

A U.S. grand jury has indicted five members of the Chinese military for allegedly cyber spying on American companies in the nuclear power, metals and solar products industries, the Department of Justice said on Monday.

/snip

Six American companies, including United States Steel Corp., Alcoa Inc. and Allegheny Technologies Inc., and one labor union were victims of Chinese hacking attacks, U.S. officials said

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So 5 nobodies where indicated. The company list is interesting. This will be gone by the end of the week.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-us-charging-chinese-hackers-trade-secrets-20140519,0,4542347.story

This is nothing new, industrial espionage has been going on for well over a hundred years.

What's different here it's a government that is conducting industrial espionage.

During the late 70's throughout the 80's and into the early 90's Japanese businesses were notorious for industrial espionage. Many were caught with small cameras while attending tradeshows, engineering and electronic conventions, auto shows, etc. in America and Europe.

In the late 1890's in Germany the Mauser action for rifles was developed. The best bolt action hunting and sniper rifles today use the Mauser action. The U.S. government Springfield 03 rifle used by the U.S. military from the turn of the century into WW ll had the Mauser action and the U.S. government paid royalties for each rifle produced. Even during WW l while the United States was fighting German soldiers on the battlefield the U.S. government continued making it's royalty payments to Mauser.

As the article mentions, the PLA ( China's, People's Liberation Army) hacked into U.S. corporate and government computer networks but the U.S. Government (NSA) also hacked into the PLA computer network. Counter espionage vs. espionage.

They do it, we do it. They got caught and Eric Holder throws the NSA under the bus. It's not the first time the Obama administration has acknowledged that our government has hacked into foreign government computer networks. Remember when Hillary Clinton for political gain announced that we inserted a virus into Iran's nuclear research computer system.

Blue_State said:

Eric Holder is about to read the claims. Depending on who they name, yes, maybe, no. At some point people stop name calling and either fight or go home. Economically, both countries benefit from each other.

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What will be more difficult will be, when national interest of a close US ally is at stake in the China Sea.

DaveFagan said:

The NSA is listening to every phone call in the World and sharing the data with USA Corporate interests and is stating that if the Chinese do it, it is illegal. Do I detect a note of hypocrisy in the message?

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Espionage is all about hypocrisy because everybody does it to everybody else and everybody complains about it when it is done to them. The only thing that keeps it from being a constant source of diplomatic strife is by adhering to a set of unspoken rules. Publicly charging multiple military officials from the spying country when they are well out of the country's reach is flagrantly breaking those rules. Were they operating within the United States or an allied country then that would be within the rules, but this seems to be solely about flexing muscles and public shaming. It is designed to create a diplomatic incident rather than to actually stop espionage (they aren't capable of arresting these officials).