cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44423305
[…]
The GCHQ intelligence agency said the data had been stockpiled in an “unrestrained campaign of malicious cyber-activities” by state-sponsored hackers. It includes classified information that could be used to take down the National Grid and spy on individuals at their workplaces.
It is a further blow to the government’s credibility after the collapse of a China spying case after the failure by senior civil servants to formally declare Beijing a “national security threat”.
Dominic Cummings, who served as a senior adviser to Boris Johnson, also revealed last week that China obtained “vast amounts” of classified government information over a period of many years.
Experts believe that much of the data has not yet been decrypted by China, but has rather been gathered for processing later in what experts call a “harvest now/decrypt later” attack. They believe the hackers are relying on quantum computers, which are advancing so rapidly they may become powerful enough to crack even the most secure forms of encryption within months.
[…]
Security officials believe the vast haul of data gathered could allow Beijing to target individuals or employees, such as academics, scientists and civil servants, for espionage purposes in areas which would give the country a competitive advantage, including in tech companies, the defence industry and the energy sector.
Such individuals might be hacked or approached via social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, by Chinese agents. Having someone’s personal data, including bank details, could also make them susceptible to blackmail.
[…]
I know what we should do to reduce our vulnerability to the kind of “harvest now, encrypt later” cyberattacks that this article mentions: let’s weaken our existing encryption by punching a big hole in it. As well as allowing the UK government to violate its own citizens’ privacy and continue eroding civil rights, we will also reduce the risk that quantum computers pose.
(This was sarcasm, if it wasn’t clear)
In the late 60’s China also did this by just wandering around the country stealing phonebooks. We’ve come a long way, baby.
All it would take is for them to hack the GCHQ which, as the Snowden Revelations have shown, has been harvesting pretty much all private data and habits of pretty much all Britons, for over a decade.
until they have a problem with bringing in digital IDs, and the amount of data being stored by google/meta/amazon/apple/etc, this just feels like sinophobia & xenophobia. stealing & storing our data’s bad in general, not just when china or russia want to do it 🤷
The hilarious bit here is that the GCHQ, which is Britain’s NSA and was shown in the Snowden Revelations to do far more extensive civil society surveillance of their own citizens than the NSA did of Americans (in Britain, unlike in the US, there are no legal limits to civil society surveillance done by the State), are the ones making these claims.
Even if if what they say is 100% perfectly and exactly true and not at all embellished by Britain’s very own civil society surveillance spooks, their hypocrisy is proper World Book Of Records level shit.
The expected whataboutism. Digital IDs and data stored by Gafam are bad, too, but hacking “classified government information over a period of many years” by a dictatorial state’s government is another dimension.
the article feels like whataboutery in itself, imo. gchq’s main thing is mass surveillance of uk citizens. if they didn’t steal & store people’s data, then that stolen data wouldn’t be stored in one convenient central location from which to steal it 🤷
edit: i do get that it’s not great that this has happened, of course. i just don’t think surveillance should be seen as inevitable in the first place.
Well said. Not to mention that our gov’ts engange in offensive espionage too. So pointing at the Chinese specifically makes it at best nationalist as in we’re not okay with it because it’s the other team doing it to us. But it smells worse. Like … our gov’ts are tapping undersea cables. Why wouldn’t others do the same? Everyone is hoping their own quantum computer would decrypt those recorded SSH sessions. The NSA is currently trying to hamper the adoption of quantum-resistant encryption. They’re operating under a fascist regime. so “But the Chinese are doing it” really sounds like whataboutism framed as concern. And that’s fine everyone’s doing that too but pretending otherwise is propagandist.
Calling this “sinophobia & xenophobia” is a absurdly weird. I guess it is a safe bet that everyone rejects surveillance, but as the West is criticized for it, China is defended here. The whataboutism only works in one direction. We must note thta China is actively seeking to expand its surveillance and dictatorial policies abroad. This has nothing to do with sinophobia.
Perhaps people are getting the impression of sinophobia by connecting this thread with your post history.
Any non-paywalled archive version available, maybe?
That’s strange. I can perfectly read the archived version. But here is another one: https://archive.ph/L1iLq
Hope that helps.
Thanks, somehow I didn’t see the small Archive link in your post previously. Both versions work well, although the ph version loads significantly faster.
The 50 cent warriors are a bit tiresome. Many comments in this thread aim at nothing but whatbouting the topic to death.
What about China-bad propaganda masquarading as news though? Rupert Murdoch surely has a vested interest. 😄
Yeah, what about, what about. It gets almost hilarious. If China is criticized, there must be some conspiracy, it can’t be true, right?
No one here has suggested the report isn’t true, at the same time The Times really is owned by Murdoch. So both can be true. The best propaganda is based on truth combined with volume and omission. Say something enough times to your audience while not saying something else aligns the readership/viewership with the desired viewpoint. Murdoch’s outlets are highly proficient in it. So are the Chinese. And so are many others.
Say something enough times to your audience while not saying something else aligns the readership/viewership with the desired viewpoint.
Yeah, the Chinese government and its propaganda media have exploited that to the extreme, right?
The only point is that people not necessarily believe it, neither in China nor anywhere else. You may suppress people’s opinions and resistance for supposedly a long time, but that does not mean that they believe the propaganda.
