Anyone see a game changer here?

Sat Jan 16 19:46:02 UTC 2010

> -----Original Message-----
> From: andrew.wallace

> It appears this is just western propaganda because:
> 
> One analyst said Friday that he is not sure the attacks point to the
> Chinese government. Rob Knake, a cybersecurity expert with the Council
> on Foreign Relations, said his analysis of results from a technology
> firm investigating the attacks suggests that they "were not
> state-sponsored or the work of an elite, sophisticated group such as
> the Chinese military."
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
> dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503321.html
> 
> Andrew

At some point, due to fundamental human nature, it doesn't matter if a
government is doing it or not.  Imagine if private citizens of one
country were shooting at the citizens of another country across the
border while the army stood by and simply watched.  The country on the
receiving end asks for it to stop but the country where the shooting is
originating from says "hey, we aren't doing it!  It is originating from
our country but it isn't the government doing it" where the receiving
side says "I don't care who is doing it, please make them stop."

It can be damaging to a country's or network operator's reputation as a
good neighbor if they allow such chaos to continue without doing
anything about it.  In many other countries where governments exert less
control, the network operators themselves often police their users by
disconnecting those who are seen to engage in such activities.  A
network operator who refuses to cooperate is often seen by their peers
as somehow "rogue" and may be shunned by the community.

The point is that it doesn't matter who is at the keyboard or who is
coding the malware.  If they are enabled by their network operator or
government looking the other way, then it is a natural tendency for
people to instinctively hold them partially responsible for the conduct
as being complicit in it.  And that isn't anything unique with China in
particular, the same thing goes for a network operator or government
anywhere on the planet.

I think in this case because China does exercise a lot of control over
their network traffic, there is a natural tendency for people to become
frustrated when they get the feeling that the government is doing
nothing to stop this sort of traffic while other types of traffic are
vigorously policed.

So the next question would be, to what extent do the various network
operators in China assist in disconnecting the sources of such traffic?
I think I already know the answer.