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Comment by tenpoundhammer | Hacker News Reader

An academic paper published by experts from the US Naval War College and Tel Aviv University in October last year blamed China Telecom for "hijacking the vital internet backbone of western countries."

The report argued that the Chinese government was using local ISPs for intelligence gathering by systematically hijacking BGP routes to reroute western traffic through its country, where it can log it for later analysis.

While some experts have criticized the paper, Madory is one of the people who stood by its technical accuracy -- albeit not by its politically-charged accusations-- confirming that China Telecom has rerouted western traffic through its network for years many times before.

However, Madory couldn't say if this was intentional, or a technical or human error.

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Even if the magnification of the error was entirely do to incompetence on the part of China Telecom (vs malice/espionage), any data mis-routed must be treated as if it were fully logged and analyzed by China's security services for military, industrial, and political advantage.

Another massive security hole from dealing with China.

They are taking advantage of open western societies to strategically run rings around them.

The US has been installing backdoors in network hardware for its own exploitation for years. No ones privacy has been respected by the NSA. The behavior of both sides is reprehensible, but this is absolutely not a case of mean ol China hurting us innocent westerners. Note that England and Australia are collaborators on the NSA’s attempts at total surveillance of the global web.

While I agree with you assessment about western nations doing very similar monitoring techniques. It still doesn't excuse China. They all should be held accountable. In fact the focus on China should be used as an opportunity to bring it to light again. People seem to have forgotten. But we shouldn't ignore it because everyone else does it.

An eloquent display of Whataboutism, to be sure.

Both are implicated, both are guilty. I fear there's little choice for the average citizen besides picking a side and living in relative obscurity.

While the term "Whataboutism" is effective rhetorically I find that it tends to silence rather than encourage discussion when the discussion strays towards pointing out hypocritical situations.

While I can totally sympathise with your second sentence I'm optimistic enough to believe that we can do a lot more than pick a side and engage in tribalism. Expressing criticism of immoral behaviour of one's perceived "own side" is a way of fighting back and it's more effective when more people do it. It's the raison d'être of free speech laws.

Excellent comment.

This may be true, but it completely fails to distinguish between 1) the type of regime implementing the surveillance - autocratic vs democratic, and 2) offensive vs defensive.

It is necessary for any society to do intelligence gathering to defend itself, or it will soon be overwhelmed by an autocratic one.

In contrast, when the entire state apparatus is turned to the goals of a single leader or party, and to suppressing any dissent and plundering other countries, it is quite a different affair. While the US has institutionalized racism in it's police forces, this is being openly fought. In contrast, China massacres thousands in Tianamen square and actively wipes it from the record, and currently imprisons over a million, it is a far different story.

False equivalence actively undermines truth.

(NB: the current US administration is doing everything it can to turn the US into an autocratic state, i.e., where the entire state apparatus serves the personal goals of administrators. However, it is actually the relative independence of the various agencies and branches of govt, including the 17 Intel agencies that are helping thwart those tendencies.)

The US jails journalists and most of our media is self censoring capitalists. Both political parties act in total agreement on lots of things as to give us no choice, and the US has a significant measurable difference between the desires of the people and the legislation we pass.

I really don’t think the US is a great democracy and we are significantly olichargic. On the other hand the Chinese government offers a fair amount of democratic decision making in some ways while squashing it in others. I really do think it’s hard to see one as morally superior than the other. It’s especially hard because I’ve been immersed in pro US propaganda my entire life.

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