Beijing’s intelligence used Salt Typhoon to access communications used by top panels in US Congress
  • knfrmity@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    27·
    4 days ago

    Does anyone remember when the US was caught spying on German Chancellor Merkel and she pretended to be super angry about it for a whole news cycle?

    Does anyone remember Crypto AG?

    Or the whole made-up “Huawei is spying on you” thing in an attempt to maintain the imperial monopoly on spyware infused networking tech?

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
    19·
    4 days ago

    The Chinese embassy in the US denied the allegations about Salt Typhoon. Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesperson, said: “We firmly oppose the US side making unfounded speculation and accusations, using cyber security to smear and slander China, and spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats.”

    I’m inclined to believe the Chinese embassy on this one. We’ve heard this story before with “Russia hacking an election”.

    Although it is probable that some kind of espionage goes on and that the standard thing is to deny it for diplomatic reasons, it’s also the case that one of the western empire’s favorite things to do is to accuse others of what it’s doing. And part of its vilification campaigns in order to steer the public toward warmongering is to make it sound like there’s an ongoing existential threat that has to be addressed. So I think it’s safe to say that even if there’s partial truth to this on some level, they are greatly distorting the details in order to make China sound scary and like it’s intruding on USian security.

    Actively talking in public about security and saying it’s shit and compromised on many levels would be incredibly stupid if they believed it was actually the case. Especially when they’re officials working for a brutal empire that has made, and continues to make, countless enemies across the globe.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
      20·
      4 days ago

      I think the reality is that everybody spies on everybody, it’s absurd to pretend otherwise. Every time I see these kinds of stories, it’s just exposing how vulnerable the US infrastructure is. The most telling bit of the article, in my opinion, was this:

      US telecom groups have done little to protect themselves from Salt Typhoon because of the huge cost involved in making networks resilient. Warner in December said US networks were particularly vulnerable because they were built when cyber security was not a serious concern.

      • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
        12·
        4 days ago

        Yeah, I think the important part is imperialist media makes it sound like spying is exceptional and like China has some almighty power of espionage over them that it’s going to use in a war it starts. When the likelihood is that any spying China is doing is directed primarily toward self-defense: probing offensive capabilities of a potential threat, probing military defenses in case of a hot war, being able to see threats coming without getting jumped because the US power structure is a fucking war-mongering machine that hates anyone who tries to be self-determining, much less communist. China has nothing to gain from trying to dominate the racist, gun-happy reactionaries of the US who would be more than happy to have an excuse to go full racist against Chinese people and other ethnicities that they can’t tell the difference between. But China does need to guard its sovereignty against the type of shit the US pulls against anyone and everyone, including kidnapping presidents.

        It’s the classic strong and weak at the same time BS. We’re supposed to believe China is scary powerful and that the US is super duper vulnerable to its spying, but also that they’re someone the empire should pick a fight with. If they are actually as powerful as these imperialist shit-shovelers make them out to be, the conclusion should be 100% to stop fucking around with vilifying them and work toward peace. Not use these shoddy narratives as more reason to saber rattle. But if there’s one thing the imperialists cannot abide, it’s a country that doesn’t bend the knee.