Titan Rain is thought to rank among the most pervasive cyberespionage threats that U.S. computer networks have ever faced. TIME has obtained documents showing that since 2003, the hackers, eager to access American know-how, have compromised secure networks ranging from the Redstone Arsenal military base to NASA to the World Bank.
Time Magazine also procured an alert from the DOD that "Titan Rain's" activities could be a precursor to an attack that could "shut down or even take over a number of U.S. military networks." A breach of that magnitude could easily place an innumerable amount of lives at risk. The sophistication of these attacks is mind-numbing, and no one knows the depth of their penetration into U.S. military networks, or how many military secrets have actually been stolen.
When we see articles on "new" weapons systems that China is implementing, i.e., US panic at China's new ship killer, many people believe that these weapons are not really "new," but are refinements of current U.S. weapons systems that China acquired through espionage. Note this excerpt from a government publication in China:
BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Fifty-two types of new weapon systems developed with China's own technologies, including airborne early warning and control (AEWC) aircraft, will be showcased at the military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China.
Further cutting-edge weaponry would include sophisticated radar, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and satellite communication devices of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Lieutenant General Fang Fenghui, general director of the parade, told Xinhua Wednesday.
Fang did not identify the specific models of the weapon systems but said all of the weapons are tagged: "Made in China". LINK
Their new weapons systems may be made in China, however, few doubt that the original concepts for the majority of these new weapons were stolen via computer espionage from other, more technically advanced nations. Research and development for sophisticated weapons systems often takes years to accomplish at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars sometimes billions. The Chinese philosophy seems to be steal what they can and then improve on the design an labor of their adversaries. One thing is certain; in China, crime pays!
The above referenced article contains far more information than I have posted; the real travesty of this remarkable discovery by Shawn Carpenter is that he was fired from Sandia Labs. Even though Mr. Carpenter was working with the FBI, and unofficial contacts he had with Army intelligence:
"They fired him and stripped him of his Q clearance, the Department of Energy equivalent of top-secret clearance. Carpenter's after-hours sleuthing, they said, was an inappropriate use of confidential information he had gathered at his day job. Under U.S. law, it is illegal for Americans to hack into foreign computers."
To understand the breadth and sheer volume of these attacks, this excerpt should send chills down the spine of anyone who believes these are isolated incidents:
"When he uncovered the Titan Rain routers in Guangdong, he carefully installed a homemade bugging code in the primary router's software. It sent him an e-mail alert at an anonymous Yahoo! account every time the gang made a move on the Net. Within two weeks, his Yahoo! account was filled with almost 23,000 messages, one for each connection the Titan Rain router made in its quest for files."
We believe that Mr. Carpenter has provided an invaluable service to his country, and instead of being fired from Sandia Labs, he should have been awarded the Medal of Freedom. To add insult to injury, the FBI "never asked for the passwords and other tools that could enable them to pick up the investigative trail at the Guangdong router."
To those in Corporate America that are outsourcing our manufacturing and jobs to China I believe that instead of sending even more of our livelihood abroad, the United States government should mandate that it's time to restore our Middle-class, reinvigorate our economy by reestablishing our manufacturing sector, but most of all, President Obama and Congress should recognize that a nation that has been systematically stealing corporate and military secrets for decades is not the actions of a friendly nation, but one that is hell bent on enriching themselves at the expense of the American taxpayers. It's time to face the consequences of corporate greed and bite the economic bullet that would accompany returning American jobs to the people. Either that, or all of need to learn to speak Chinese!
William Cormier
NOTE: On Op-Ed News, there is an excellent article titled:
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