The Dark Visitor

Well, a large portion of it anyway. A DDoS attack on one domain server created a cascade reaction that left five provinces struggling to get online:

This is what happened during the DNSPod incident, however, it triggered a chain of unexpected events, which led to network congestions for the carrier networks. DNSPod’s servers happen to be used by Baofeng, a highly popular Chinese video streaming service. Once the millions Baofeng users fired up their desktop application, all the requests bounced off on the ISP servers, which did not know how to process them.

The intense traffic on the high-level servers caused bottlenecks, slowing everyone’s Internet connection down to a crawl. In addition to the users in the five aforementioned provinces, who were severely affected, customers in Henan, Anhui and Gansu have also reportedly experienced problems.

Hey guys, just got back from China and picked up a couple of books that should be of interest.  The book on the left is International Situation and Security Strategy by General Xiong Guangkai.   I read about the book in China Daily and went all over Beijing to find it.  General Xiong is considered “the ultimate insider” with knowledge of policy-making in China.

The second book is Internet Wars (Win the Internet, Win the Future) and the author is described as an internet researcher with a background in policy.

Oh, I am now certified Swine-Flu free in three countries.  Mom is awful proud.

…must sleep now.

First, I want to thank J.D. Abolins for taking the time this week to school me on cyber warfare.  Needed to get up to speed on the latest and greatest in current thinking on the subject and J.D. provided me with chapter, line and verse.  As I recall, he was also one of the first people to link to this blog.

So, how do you repay someone who took time out of their busy schedule to do you a personal favor? Manners dictate that you steal their detailed research on Kylin of  course! Yep, we here at TDV just roll that way.

J.D. Abolins on Kylin Secure OS

Thanks J.D.

Robert McMillan, from PCWorld, was kind enough to give us a link in his article on China strengthening its cyber laws.

However, the paper concludes that the country’s laws are still in the early stages of development. “Gaps and inadequacies exist in traditional offense provisions,” said Qi, a senior lecturer in the Department of Computing at Canterbury Christ Church University in the U.K.

Robert’s full article…As Hacking Hits Home, China Strengthens Cyber Laws.

UPDATE:  The author of this article makes a slight mistake on the title of Tim’s book calling it, Fighting the Virtual Dragon.  The title is Decoding the Virtual Dragon.

Mr. Thomas has done extensive research into PLA cyber warfare and is the best in the business on PRC strategy.

Understanding China’s strategic approach to cyber warfare is essential to defending the United States from hackers, Timothy Thomas, an analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, said in a lecture on Tuesday in the Haldeman Center. The anonymous nature of cyber attacks often complicates cyber defense, Thomas said in the lecture.

Dartmouth lecture on cyber warfare

H/T our friend: Wipe that smile off your face.

Very funny article on 10 easy steps to writing the scariest cyberwarfare article ever, hits way too close to home.

With daily reports of severe breaches in national cybersecurity and devastating cyber-attacks on government infrastructure, many journalists are in dire need of a manual to enlighten their writing on the subject. Here are my ten(rather cynical) tips to make your cyberwarfare story succeed.

I just call it writing style…sigh.

LEAD:

On July 6th, 1776, the local New York press announced independence.  Three days later George Washington read the document to his soldiers.  In a rush of patriotic exuberance, militiamen and civilians rushed down Broadway and at Bowling Green, mobbed a gilded equestrian statue of George III.  Underneath the gilded gold statue, lay 4,000 pounds of solid lead that produced 42,088 musket bullets.  It was said that the king’s soliders would probably have melted majesty fired at them.

Steel:

One of my favorite mentors provided a bit of historical context for me while discussing history, economics, trade and warfare.  He said, “prior to the start of WWII, the US was kind enough to send steel to Japan.  During the war, the Japanese were kind enough to send it back.”

Digits:

In 1963, Licklider proposed networked computing, leading to the birth of the World Wide Web in 1989.

In ????, the digits were kindly returned.

Currently reading Alexander Hamilton by Chernow, where I found the first passage.  That made me recall the second, leading to third.  Just random Monday night thoughts.

Found this on D0mber’s Basecamp and I think they are right:

Lost33′s logo on his blog:

And a character from Warcraft III, called footman:

Now all of the links are complete.

Busy couple of months for Chinese hackers.  Using e-mail to target potential victims might not be sophisticated but it is effective:

SEOUL, Apr 08, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) — Chinese hackers targeting South Korean government computers gained access to classified information and financial policies, officials here said Wednesday.

The compromised computers, located at the finance ministry headquarters in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, were attacked in early February. Intelligence authorities are conducting a probe, the officials said.

The 2009 Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China is out.  Yes, it does talk about cyber warfare and hacking, enjoy.

Here is your link to the PDF file.