Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

The rationale behind China's attempt to steal America's military and technological secrets are many in number, not the least of which is that nation's desire to 'catch-up' after centuries of self-determined isolation and decades under misguided communist policies that resulted in the mass starvation of tens of millions ordinary Chinese citizens suffering under socialist economic policies, witness the devastation caused by chairman Mao's abysmal 5-year plans, for example. It was not until Mao's successor, Deng Xiaoping, forever tied to the slogan getting rich was glorious 19 that the nation opened itself up to the rest of the world, offering hundreds of millions on inexpensive laborers in exchange for Western democracy's advanced technology in areas ranging from agricultural, banking, finance, science and technology industries. Unsatisfied with the critical need to come close to the modern day advances that have afforded a markedly superior standard of living for its citizens, that nation has taken to espionage activities that have filled our newspapers since Deng's alleged pronouncement and give western government leaders pause about the consequences. That China has resorted to espionage on an unprecedented level is not new, but their ability to use the very technologies shared with then against the U.S. (technologies such as the Internet, personal computer operating systems and applications, together with their aggregate vulnerabilities) has become problematic. Interested readers will recall when Bill Gates went public with China's deliberate acts of stealing countless copies of Windows-95 in 1995 before the product was even available for sale in the U.S., and may not be surprised to learn that just a few years ago Steve Ballmer, then President of Microsoft, complained that 95% of Chinese software revenue is lost to piracy'. 20, 21 Chinese insatiable appetite for western products—legitimately gained or otherwise—have resulted in repeated attacks emanating from that nation that are beyond repudiation, while China's official government stance, of course, continues to challenge the U.S. to prove their being complicit it in these attacks, first widely revealed in Titan Rain. A main reason why proving Chinese involvement is difficult to establish has to do with the basic fact that the attacks come from IP the addresses of literally thousands of computers throughout China, which are thought to be part of a 'zombie' network (computers that have been the victim of attack and are used—often without the user being aware—that the computer has been compromised and is part of an interconnected mesh of zombies remotely controlled to attack various internet addresses, both to learn about the defenses in place and also to determine the type of information found at the targeted site). The ability for vast hordes of inter-connected computers to launch these zombie attacks stems from the well-known fact that many personal computers within China remain unpatched and hence, vulnerable to various types of attacks. Indeed, as many as 200 million computers in China remain vulnerable because they continue to run 13-year old Windows XP—an operating system that Microsoft no longer supports. It is estimated that 55% of Chinese personal computers still run the highly vulnerable software and operating system program. 22 The problem with China's refusal to move away from the now outdated software platform is one of the reasons why Microsoft is planning to make Internet Explorer–its renowned browser that is still plagued with a tarnished past on account of its vulnerability problems associated with version 6—no longer available as the company plans to release Microsoft O/S version 10 that will not have Internet Explorer as its browser but rather a replacement named Sparta. To try to lure Chinese users away from XP, the company is planning to give free copies of the software to users running the older version of its operating system. 23 68

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