The Dark Visitor

In March of this year, CNN ran a story about Xiao Chen and his organization of hackers, reporting that the group had broken into the Pentagon and received payments from the Chinese government.

Xiao Chen, in a subsequent interview with the Shanghai Post, refuted all of CNN’s allegations and tearfully explained how all of this controversy had caused him to close his website hack4.com…he had struggled to create it…he had poured his heart and soul into it…and now was left with only had a handful of magic beans to show for his trouble.

I may be mixing my stories but he did elevate whining to an art form.

No need to worry, Xiao Chen pulled himself up, dusted himself off and managed to get back in the hacking game. Welcome to the new hack4.com , decorated in Olympic themed swirls guaranteed to never go out of style:

For those of you who have not been following the story of Chinese hacker Xiao Chen go here and here.

In an interview with the Shanghai Morning Post, Xiao Chen (萧晨) expressed anger over CNN’s distortion of the facts in reporting his group hacked into the Pentagon and was subsequently paid by the Chinese government. In a telephonic interview with the Morning Post, Xiao Chen said he had just shut down the Hacker World webiste.

This website has been a dream of mine for many years, so many years of painstaking care and now nothing.

Xiao Chen told the reporter he had set up the website three or four years ago as a platform for like-minded friends to study and research network security.

I have never used hacker technology to attack others.  You can look at
the rules on our home page that say don’t attack other people’s networks.

Xiao Chen claims that on February 17th, he received an e-mail from Wu Xiaolong (吴小龙) in Hong Kong requesting an interview. On 27 February, the CNN crew arrived and from the onset, all the questions were about hacking into US military websites and downloading sensitive information. Xiao Chen claims they denied any knowledge of this and that the CNN report was completely fabricated.

According to Xiao Chen, when the CNN reporters saw that there was no evidence, they asked him if he could get some sensitive information and it didn’t even matter if it wasn’t theirs. He also states that during his interview with CNN, the reporters never even asked about being paid by the government.

About his future plans, Xiao Chen said he hoped to be able to get funding to continue his website but in case that wasn’t possible, he might consider legal actions against CNN.

Oh, Xiao Chen’s rules about not hacking into other people’s systems posted on his home page:

Sure, it does say that…but then it goes on to say but if you must do it….to avoid legal difficulty…

He also should have paid more attention to his own posting, especially rule number 8:

8.  Do not discuss anything about your hacking activities on the telephone

My guess is that Beijing found out about his little interview with CNN and now Xiao Chen is in full backpedal mode. You can bet money he told CNN he hacked into the Pentagon but is really regretting that decision about now. Do I think he really hacked into the Pentagon? No. But, that would not stop him from selling the story to CNN.

Also, all that stuff about being a security site…yeah, right! The guy has been selling all manner of malware and is anything but a security website. He was busted by Beijing and now wants it to all go away, good luck with that!

Oh, you now need a password to get to hack4.com…wonder why?

First, a very big thank you to reader Copper, who first pointed out that there was a BIG button right over the article on Chinese hacker Xiao Chen that said…VIDEO! And, if you watch said video…it gives Xiao Chen’s webiste.

Here is the 1st screenshot from the CNN video, notice the links section at the botttom that I have circled in red.  The first link is to Hacker World (hack4.com) 黑客天下 and the second is to Hackbase.com.  It is typical for Chinese hackers to list their own website first in the links section.

UPDATE: Sorry, I was unclear in the paragraph above, Xiao Chen only owns 
hack4.com. Hackbase.com was listed just to show similarity in the websites.

Now look at this screen shot from hack4.com. There are a couple of differences but clearly the same website:

Next image from the  CNN video gives the Chinese 黑客天下, Hacker World or hack4.com:

Now take a look at this graphic from CNN in the left corner of the page:

and this one from hack4.com…

Finally, this one from CNN and you really had to be watching for it:

In the CNN interview, Xiao Chen claimed to have 10,000 registered members.
From the hack4.com website, they list the number of registered members as 9,746…pretty darn close:

UPDATE: Xiao Chen’s website located

CNN reporter John Vause has a very interesting article on a Chinese hacker by the name of Xiao Chen and his group. They actually seem very typical of the entire community, except for the claims of hacking the Pentagon and getting paid by the Chinese government.   These claims can probably be taken with a grain or two of salt since they were being interviewed.  Not saying it isn’t possible, just saying.  As to whether or not the PRC would pay for the information, yes and no. If it is true, I think they would consider the source of the intelligence, like…would this group of hackers later do an interview with CNN and tell them everything.

One other point, without knowing the name of the website it is very difficult
to tell how much influence it has within the Red Hacker Alliance. However, 10,000 registered members is not that many for the average Chinese hacker website. In fact, it is pretty average.

There was one quote from Chen that I really liked and that I agree with 100%:

‘First, you must know about the Web site you want to attack. You must know what program it is written with,’ says Xiao Chen. There is a saying, ‘Know about both yourself and the enemy, and you will be invincible.’

Now for those of you who don’t know, that is straight out of the Art of War by Sun Zi (Sun Tzu). And, the reason I started this blog.

The full article on Xiao Chen is here… Chinese hacker Xiao Chen