China & the e-wars

The decision to charge Chinese army hackers with U.S. crimes has finally brought some media attention to a war that has been raging for years. While it's well-known that Chinese companies have been stealing American (and other) IP in various ways, e-hacking goes well beyond that. For example:

The United Steelworkers union lost computer records containing trade policy strategies and discussions about rare earth metals and auto parts.

All four had something in common besides the data thefts: Each was publicly pushing back against China’s trade policies by seeking help from the World Trade Organization or the Commerce Department.

A Justice Department indictment released on Monday — which accuses five Chinese military personnel of the attacks — reads like a chronology of most of the major trade disputes between the United States and China in the last five years.

In most instances, the American company or union that defied Beijing ended up facing extensive break-ins by Chinese military hackers, according to the documents. It is a pattern that could discourage further trade policy challenges.

That's from a NYT story, which brings me back to the original FBI charges and the media coverage thereof. The Times has done a series of stories that has essentially equated the industrial spying that China does with the NSA's spying. That's a line that China has used, and it's patently absurd. The NSA doesn't own American companies, and isn't renting its work out to them. Nor is it engaged in the sort of intellectual property theft or the harassment of civilian firms that China is. While other media organizations have also failed to draw the distinctions, the ironic thing is that the Times has been a victim of Chinese attacks, and so the expertise on the situation is readily available.

I guess that they're trying to come off as objective by reporting the analogies, but at best the tone of their coverage so far muddies the issue. Unfortunately, no other mainstream media source is doing a better job; most aren't even reporting on the issue in depth at all.

The indictment by the FBI seems to me an attempt to start drawing a line on what is acceptable and what isn't when it comes to cyber spying and, ultimately, cyber warfare. The elephant in the room, though, is cyber-theft, which threatens people and commerce in all countries and eventually will have to be dealt with in a comprehensive manner at the international level. Invading private company databases - whether to steal credit card information or IP - will ultimately carry with it draconian if not medieval penalties, but that's not going to happen if nation-sponsored hackers can do it without consequence.