| China’s Cyber-Warriors NEW DELHI – The world now accepts that protecting our atmosphere , hydrosphere , lithosphere , and biosphere – the “ global commons ” – is the responsibility of all countries . The same norm must apply to cyberspace , which is critical to our everyday life , economic well-being , and security . At a time when cyber attacks are increasing worldwide , US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right to declare that an attack on one nation’s computer networks “ can be an attack on all . ” Indeed , the attacks are a reminder that , as a new part of the global commons , cyberspace already has come under threat . Cyberspace must be treated , along with outer space , international waters , and international airspace , as property held in common for the good of all . And , like ocean piracy and airplane hijacking , cyber-crime cannot be allowed to go unpunished if we are to safeguard our common assets and collective interests . Naming China among a handful of countries that have stepped up Internet censorship , Clinton warned that “ a new information curtain is descending across much of the world . ” Her statement , with its allusion to the Cold War-era Iron Curtain , amounted to an implicit admission that the central assumption guiding US policy on China since the 1990’s – that assisting China’s economic rise would usher in greater political openness there – has gone awry . The strategy of using market forces and the Internet to open up a closed political system simply is not working . Indeed , the more economic power China has accumulated , the more adept it has become in extending censorship to cyberspace . If anything , China has proven that a country can blend control , coercion , and patronage to stymie the Internet’s politically liberalizing elements . Through discreet but tough controls , Beijing pursues a policy of wai song , nei jin – relaxed on the outside , vigilant internally . Google is now crying foul over “ a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China . ” But , despite its corporate motto – “ Don’t be evil ” – Google itself was instrumental in aiding online censorship in China , having custom-built a search engine that purges all references and Web sites that the Chinese government considers inappropriate . Now Google itself has become a victim of China’s growing cyber prowess , in the same way that appeasement of Hitler boomeranged onto France and Britain . China deploys tens of thousands of “ cyber police ” to block Web sites , patrol cyber-cafes , monitor the use of cellular telephones , and track down Internet activists . But the threat to the new global commons comes not from what China does domestically . Rather , it comes from the way in which the know-how that China has gained in fashioning domestic cyber oversight is proving invaluable to it in its efforts to engage in cyber intrusion across its frontiers . Canadian researchers have discovered a vast Chinese surveillance system called “ GhostNet , ” which can compromise computers in organizations abroad through booby-trapped e-mail messages that automatically scan and transfer documents to a digital storage facility in China . This is what happened when computers of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala , India , were attacked last year . India’s national security adviser recently complained that his office was targeted yet again by hackers . “ People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese , ” he said . Officials in Germany , Britain , and the US have acknowledged that hackers believed to be from China also have broken into their government and military networks . The state-sponsored transnational cyber threat is at two levels . The first is national , with the hackers largely interested in two objectives . One is to steal secrets and gain an asymmetrical advantage over another country . Cyber intrusion in peacetime allows the prowler to read the content and understand the relative importance of different computer networks so that it knows what to disable in a conflict situation . The other objective is commercial : to pilfer intellectual property . The second level of cyber threat is against chosen individuals . The most common type of intrusion is an attempt to hack into e-mail accounts . The targets also can face Trojan-horse attacks by e-mail intended to breach their computers and allow the infiltrators to corrupt or transfer files remotely . To be sure , if a cyber attack is camouflaged , it is not easy to identify the country from which it originated . Through the use of so-called “ false-flag espionage ” and other methods , attacks can be routed through the computers of a third country . Just as some Chinese pharmaceutical firms exported to Africa spurious medicines with “ Made in India ” labels – a fact admitted by the Chinese government – some Chinese hackers are known to have routed their cyber intrusion through computers in Russia , Iran , Cuba , and other countries . But , like their comrades in the pharmaceutical industry , such hackers tend to leave telltale signs . Then there are many cases in which the attacks have originated directly from China . It seems unlikely that these hackers , especially those engaged in cyber espionage , pilferage , and intimidation , are private individuals with no links to the Chinese government . It is more likely that they are tied to the People’s Liberation Army . In war , this irregular contingent of hackers would become the vanguard behind which the PLA takes on the enemy . Systematic cyber attacks constitute a new frontier of asymmetrical warfare at a time when the world already confronts other unconventional threats , including transnational terrorism . With national security and prosperity now dependent on the safekeeping of cyberspace , cybercrime must be effectively countered as an international priority . If not , cyberspace will become the new global-commons battlefield . |