The US of America has slapped yet another corporate espionage case against China saying that a Chinese businessman had stolen data about military aircraft from Boeing computers. The Justice department has identified the business man as Su Bin, who owns an aviation company, Lode Tech, and lives in Canada.
The charge against Su Bin is that he has spent years hacking into Boeing Company’s computers, and collected huge amount of data concerning American military aircraft and associated weapon system.
While the charge is disturbing, it raises questions about the firewalls American computers have built since Chinese hackers with government patronage are known to be merrily hunting 24×7 the internet portals, particularly US-based. That they have not spared India is a different matter. In the Sino-American context, the charge sheet is an open admission that the high priest of netizens has feet of clay.
Confessions, as they go, are no consolation since the admissions come long after a mistake was committed or exposed. This ex-post-facto business is no solace certainly for a country which is known to attract Chinese hackers by the dozen every day.
The Chinese assault on one of America’s most sophisticated military contractors is therefore a grim reminder that even seemingly safe computer systems are vulnerable, as the New York Times remarked while “breaking” Su Bin venture.
NYT said there is no indication that the Chinese government has orchestrated the attacks, or that anyone breached classified systems or stole classified information. But do the Americans need hard evidence to reach safe conclusions. Did they wait for hard evidence to surface about weapons of mass destruction with Saddam Hussain, the Socialist Sunni leader who ruled Shia majority Iraq for years till he invited the wrath of the global cop. Since the answer is in the negative to both question, what is the need now to brood over whether official Beining was behind Su Bin. In fact, such questions have long lost relevance in today’s unipolar world.
There have been several known instances of the Chinese hacking into American computer systems. Also of stealing nuclear secrets and smuggling key documents and components of reactors.
As recently as March, the Chinese hackers demolished the fire walls of computers that stored personal info of all US government employees. A month later in May, the Justice Department said five Chinese officials had hacked the systems in Westinghouse Electric, United States Steel and some other companies.
Hacking into Boeing is not a new development either. Its fire walls were first breached in January 2010, with focus on C-17 military cargo plane, according to investigators. Over the next two years the Chinese “stole” some 65 gigabytes of data from Boeing’s software.
China’s interest in C-17 is understandable. While the Boeing is going to stop production of these planes next year, China is developing its own cargo plane, which, according to experts, is similar in some respects to the C-17.
Su Bin fitted the bill because he owns an aviation company. He has been arrested and will soon be extradited to Los Angles to stand trial.
All this pops up the questions: what were the American cyber sleuths doing? In what way the Chinese hacking is bad when American NSA has been snooping on servers that carry e-mails from across the world and has not spared even friendly Germans, Pakistan’s People’s Party and India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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Well, the US officials assert that their hacking is in global interest to nip in the bud any terrorist threat. China, according to them, hacks to gain an economic advantage. If it is indeed so, why did the Americans hack into the computer systems of Huawei, and intercept the “conversations” between the Chinese civilian and military leaders. We have no answers as yet.
—RAM SINGH KALCHURI
