China is basically evil — around the Globe — here is John Glynn:
A widespread and worrying web of espionage.
According to FireEye, a cybersecurity company headquartered in Milpitas, California, a group of state-sponsored in China ran activities for personal gain at the same time as undertaking spying operations for the Chinese government in 14 different countries.
In a report released on Thursday, July 8, the authors outlined the ways in which elite teams of Chinese government-backed hackers are using non-public malware typically reserved for espionage to make money through attacks on video game companies.
Hackers have repeatedly gained access to game development environments, with a particular focus on in-game currency, according to the FireEye report.
In one example, hackers successfully appropriated tens of millions of dollars of virtual currency and credited the loot to more than 1,000 accounts. As Josh Taylor at The Guardian notes, China’s “attention to video game companies could be seen as a precursor to espionage activity.”
Then again, espionage is something at which the Chinese regime excels.
Kathrine Hill at FT warns readers that China has sent “thousands of scientists affiliated with its armed forces to western universities — especially in countries that share intelligence with the US — and is building a web of research collaboration that could boost Beijing’s military technology development.”
Over the past decade, roughly 2,500 researchers from Chinese military universities have spent time at universities in the west; many of these are informants hide their military affiliations. This is not conjecture. Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think-tank partly funded by Australia’s department of defense, have focused on members of the so-called “Five Eyes,” a group of countries with which the US exchanges intelligence and scientific findings. The “Five Eyes” include UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Interestingly, since 2013, researchers affiliated to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have published more joint papers with scientists from the UK and the US than with those of any other country.
The findings leave us asking a couple of questions:
- Should western researchers be collaborating with researchers affiliated to the People’s Liberation Army?
- Should researchers in the west be helping Beijing to develop cutting-edge technology which will ultimately help the fascist state continue to act
Read more: Frontpage Mag
