via: thedaytheytriedtokillme:

• The FBI report estimates that since 2003, the Chinese Army has specifically developed a network of over 30,000 Chinese military cyberspies, plus more than 150,000 private-sector computer experts, whose mission is to steal American military and technological secrets and cause mischief in government and financial services. China’s goal, says the FBI report, is to have the world’s premier “informationized armed forces” by 2020. According to the bureau’s classified information, the Chinese hackers are adept at implanting malicious computer code, and in 2009 companies in diverse industries such as oil and gas, banking, aerospace, and telecommunications encountered costly and at times debilitating problems with Chinese-implanted “malware.” The FBI analyst would not name the affected companies.
• One of China’s most effective weapons, according to the FBI report, is a continuation of what Pentagon security investigators originally dubbed Titan Rain; it is a Chinese scanner program that probes national defense and high-tech industrial computer networks thousands of times a minute looking for vulnerabilities. The Chinese military hackers, the FBI analyst told me, enter without any keystroke errors, leave no digital fingerprints, and create a clean backdoor exit in under 20 minutes, feats considered capable only for a military or civilian spy agency of only a few governments.
• These attacks are proliferating. The FBI report lays out the identifiable attacks originating from China just on the Defense Department computers; they increased from 44,000 in 2007 to 55,000 in 2008, and topped 90,000 last year. “They probe, they test our responses, as quick as we make changes and fix vulnerabilities, they are moving a step ahead,” the analyst told me.
• The Chinese hackers aren’t after credit-card numbers or bank accounts or looking to steal private identities. Instead, they are hunting for information. Although the barrage of attacks may at times appear random, the FBI report concludes that it is part of a strategy to fully flush out U.S. military telecommunications and to better understand—and to attempt to intercept—intelligence being gathered by American spy agencies, particularly the National Security Agency.

• Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — China supplanted the U.S. as the world’s largest auto market after its 2009 vehicle sales jumped 46 percent, ending more than a century of American dominance that started with the Model T Ford.
• “China is becoming the center stage of development for the 21st century global auto industry,” said Bill Russo, a Beijing- based senior adviser at Booz & Co., which advises automakers. “Economic growth has directly translated into growth in automobile sales.”

But can China learn from the last empire’s failures: the United States building its economy around the car and war? and See 2020: China Rises, the US Declines and the Planet Strikes Back.

• Much will change in 10 years. China will rise, the global South will grow in importance, the U.S. will decline. These phenomena will be eclipsed by devastating planetary changes.
• Our two wars have been sucking us dry in two countries where state-owned Chinese companies have just scored significant economic victories.  “While the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda [in Afghanistan],” wrote Wines, “China is securing raw material for its voracious economy. The world’s superpower is focused on security. Its fastest rising competitor concentrates on commerce.”
• Under George W. Bush, the U.S. set out, in part, to turn the Greater Middle East into an American “lake” of energy reserves via two invasions, and you know how that worked out.  The Chinese, on the other hand, only last year sent their warships abroad — to hunt pirates as part of an international flotilla in the Gulf of Aden — for the first time since the eunuch Zheng He commanded a Ming dynasty armada that reached Africa six centuries ago.  Unfortunately, as Michael Klare, TomDispatch regular and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, makes clear below, China’s leaders are as unlikely to learn from our deepest mistakes as they were 30-odd years ago when China’s post-Cultural Revolution leadership looked our way and made a logical but calamitous decision: that the auto industry —all those millions of individual cars burning fossil fuels — would be a crucial pillar of their future industrial development.
• Right now, they may still seem to be acting out a key lesson of this American moment:  Stay off the hard stuff. You know, all that advanced weaponry (and the military-industrial complex that goes with it), all those aircraft carrier battle groups, all those “expeditionary forces” ready to be sent thousands of miles from home to fight “little wars.”  Once again, however, as Klare suggests, our present symbols of “power” are likely to be their paragon and the future will be a mess.  It’s not enough, it seems, to make money, not war.  Once you have the money, it has to be spent on something and our imaginations remain so limited.
• Too bad.  Here’s where you could only wish the future might be a little less predictable.  No such luck, Klare tells us, when it comes to military power as the measure of greatness on planet Earth in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

• China’s military is under attack. At least its Web site is…from hackers.
• In a sign that China’s Ministry of National Defense faces the same kind of Internet security challenges that militaries around the world have reported, its new Web site was attacked more than 2.3 million times within a month of going online in August. The state-run People’s Daily newspaper reported that revelation Wednesday in an interview with the editor-in-chief of the Chinese defense department’s Web site, Ji Guilin.
• In the report, Ji said the Web site battled down a variety of hackers and no harm was done to China’s national security. He said the Web site has boosted its network security.
• Ji didn’t say where the hacker attacks originated.
• Militaries elsewhere, of course, suggest sophisticated attacks on their national defense systems and secrets sometimes come from China. Articles here, here, here and here.
• An October report on China’s ability to “Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation” that was prepared for U.S. authorities concluded China’s ability to conduct “informationization” — cyber snooping — appears high. The report’s summary concludes with the lines, “If Chinese operators are, indeed, responsible for even some of the current exploitation efforts targeting U.S. Government and commercial networks, then they may have already demonstrated that they possess a mature and operationally proficient [computer network operations] capability.”

Jellyfish are Decimating Japanese Fishing

• KOKONOGI, Japan –The venom of the Nomura, the world’s largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day’s catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan’s Wakasa Bay.
• “Some fishermen have just stopped fishing,” said Taiichiro Hamano, 67. “When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed.”
• This year’s jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.
• Scientists believe climate change — the warming of oceans — has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.
• The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.
• “These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans are stressed and unhealthy,” said Lucas Brotz, a University of British Columbia researcher.
• The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan’s leading expert on the problem.
• Hearing fishermen’s pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton, became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura’s jellyfish, scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.
• “No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they reproduced,” said Uye, 59. “This jellyfish was like an alien.”
• He artificially bred Nomura’s jellyfish in his Hiroshima University lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits. He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they were riding currents to Japanese waters.
• He concluded China’s coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground: Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past quarter-century.
• “The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant,” said Uye, as he sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing boat. “Their growth rates are quite amazing.”
• The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan from China.
• “The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich, but it might be too late by then,” he said.
• Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.
• In the short term, governments are left with few options other than warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing fish through to be caught in another.
• Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular delicacy, jellyfish isn’t likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing, heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush

Interview with the photographer and how he managed to get these amazing photos HERE.

• BEIJING — A top China air force commander has called the militarisation of space an “historical inevitability”, state media said Monday, marking an apparent shift in Beijing’s opposition to weaponising outer space.
• In a wide-ranging interview in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily, air force commander Xu Qiliang said it was imperative for the PLA air force to develop offensive and defensive operations in outer space.
• “As far as the revolution in military affairs is concerned, the competition between military forces is moving towards outer space… this is a historical inevitability and a development that cannot be turned back,” Xu told the paper.
• Superiority in outer space can give a nation control over war zones both on land and at sea, while also offering a strategic advantage, Xu said, noting that such dominance was necessary to safeguard the nation.
• “Only power can protect peace,” the 59-year-old commander said in the interview given to coincide with this month’s 60th anniversary of the founding of the PLA air force.
• China has long stated that it supported the peaceful uses of outer space and opposed the introduction of weapons there. Beijing has also sought to establish an international treaty to control the deployment of weapons in space.
• In January 2007, China surprised the world by shooting down one of its own weather satellites in a test seen by many, including the United States, as a possible trigger of an arms race in space.

• China has gotten a lot of bad press for its companies’ investments in Africa. Meanwhile, one famous American family is involved in trying to help pave the way for one such company.
• The Bush family may be better known for Texas barbeque than Peking duck, but nonetheless has long-reaching ties to China. Now, Dow Jones reports that Neil Bush, the younger brother of former U.S. President George W. Bush, represented Chinese oil giant Sinopec Group in a making a bid for part of an oil field in Ghana.
• Sinopec has been on an aggressive world-wide shopping spree, spending billions of dollars on oilfields across Africa and the Middle East. Sinopec is playing into China’s strategy to secure natural resources, but it’s also playing catch-up to its mainland rivals such as bigger China National Petroleum Corp., which has one of the world’s biggest oil fields, the giant Daqing in north eastern China.
• Sinopec’s mostly a downstream refinery business, doing the unglamorous work of turning unprocessed crude oil into fuel, and its options for expansion are limited.
• Its other overseas acquisitions haven’t been smooth sailing, and this looks just as tough — despite the company’s name-brand pitchman. Ghana’s national oil company turned down the initial offer and is waiting to hear what other oil companies have to say.
• It gets messier. The stake in the Jubilee oilfield in Ghana is owned by U.S. company Kosmos Energy, which says it has signed a binding agreement with ExxonMobil Corp. for an estimated $4 billion — though Ghana says it can strike down that deal.
• This isn’t the first foray into China by Mr. Bush, whose father, President George H.W. Bush, was the U.S. chief liaison officer in Beijing in the 1970s. These days, Neil Bush is co-chairman of a Beijing-based real estate company and has been working with big steel maker Shougang Holdings to help it break into Africa.

• The U.S. is an empire in decline, according to Niall Ferguson, Harvard professor and author of The Ascent of Money.
• “People have predicted the end of America in the past and been wrong,” Ferguson concedes. “But let’s face it: If you’re trying to borrow $9 trillion to save your financial system…and already half your public debt held by foreigners, it’s not really the conduct of rising empires, is it?”
• Given its massive deficits and overseas military adventures, America today is similar to the Spanish Empire in the 17th century and Britain’s in the 20th, he says. “Excessive debt is usually a predictor of subsequent trouble.”
• Putting a finer point on it, Ferguson says America today is comparable to Britain circa 1900: a dominant empire underestimating the rise of a new power. In Britain’s case back then it was Germany; in America’s case today, it’s China.
• “When China’s economy is equal in size to that of the U.S., which could come as early as 2027…it means China becomes not only a major economic competitor - it’s that already, it then becomes a diplomatic competitor and a military competitor,” the history professor declares.
• The most obvious sign of this is China’s major naval construction program, featuring next generation submarines and up to three aircraft carriers, Ferguson says. “There’s no other way of interpreting this than as a challenge to the hegemony of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region.”
• As to analysts like Stratfor’s George Friedman, who downplay China’s naval ambitions, Ferguson notes British experts - including Winston Churchill - were similarly complacent about Germany at the dawn of the 20th century.
• “I’m not predicting World War III but we have to recognize…China is becoming more assertive, a rival not a partner,” he says, adding that China’s navy doesn’t have to be as large as America’s to pose a problem. “They don’t have to have an equally large navy, just big enough to pose a strategic threat [and] cause trouble” for the U.S. Navy.

Oba_Mao shirts on sale now in China!!

more pics here.

• The United States wants world leaders to agree this week to launch a major rethink of the world economy in November as they try to strengthen the global economy after its near meltdown.
• Documents outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Pittsburgh summit of Group of 20 leaders said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States must boost savings.
• “The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not matched by offsetting adjustments in other parts of the global economy,” said the document obtained by Reuters.
• Obama, cutting through the coded diplomatic courtesies, made the case more bluntly for a change in business as usual.
• “We can’t go back to the era where the Chinese or Germans or other countries just are selling everything to us, we’re taking out a bunch of credit card debt or home equity loans, but we’re not selling anything to them,” he said on Sunday.

• It’s impossible to set an exact date for the birth of the Internet. You could say that it was born when the first two nodes of the ARPANET were connected between UCLA and SRI International in Menlo Park, California, on October 29th, 1969. Or you could say that it all began when Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA transferred some data between two computers on September 2nd that same year.
• However you look at it, the date is now very near, and in its 40 years of existence the Internet has changed our lives forever. However, as AP’s Anick Jesdanun notes, if you look at its last couple of years, the Internet – once flying almost solely on enormous enthusiasm of everyone involved – is now definitely going through a crisis, perhaps somewhat obscured by the shiny new tools at our disposal.
• On one hand, you have the evident rise of social media and social networks, which are becoming an essential part – the meat around the bones, if you will – of the Internet. Twitter and Facebook don’t really enable you to do anything you couldn’t have done before with old protocols and services such as IRC, but they focus on you – the person – and they make it easier than ever to share and to connect with other people. To us who follow these new tools and write about them daily, it feels like a wonderful revolution.
• The Internet is, however, today also plagued by countless problems. Uneven standards, censorship in many countries, countless lawsuits and the subsequent ostracizing of sharing content altogether, net neutrality issues, and finally, copyright issues that are fueling stricter – often way too strict – laws which are towering over our online freedoms.
• All of these are causing a fragmentation of the Internet that might have long lasting consequences, especially for the developing countries. Remember when Internet was about sharing everything with everyone? Look at services such as Veoh, Hulu, Pandora if you happen to be living in the wrong part of the globe, these don’t work for you. It’s getting harder and harder to connect and to share on the Internet. In China, the country where the iPhone is made, people are still waiting to be able to buy an iPhone. When they do, they won’t be able to access the same websites; they won’t get the same search results, and various online services will behave differently or won’t work at all.
• One day, we’ll wake up and see that there are many Internets out there. Will your Internet be a world full of possibilities, open for sharing and connecting with others, or will it be a place full of restrictions, restraints, and limitations? Think fast, because soon it may be too late.