The easiest way to transfer money from China to the US

Ever since being in China, I have found that doing anything that involves a bank is frustrating at best. I have been trying to find a way to transfer my money here from China back home to the US. The methods I have heard about to transfer money are:

1. Go to the bank and have them do some sort of wire transfer. (Not every bank does this)
2. Do a Western Union wire transfer.
3. Carry a wad of cash over the border and convert the money once you are outside of China.

I recently discovered a fourth and perhaps simplest method for transferring money.

Here is how:

1. Step 1. Sign up for a US Paypal account.
2. Step 2. Sign up for a Worldwide Paypal account.
3. Step 3. Make sure you have internet banking with your bank (probably need a native Chinese person to help you out with this one unless your Chinese is quite good).
4. Step 4. Transfer money from your UnionPay card to your Worldwide Paypal account.
5. Step 5. Transfer money from your Worldwide Paypal account, to your US Paypal account.
6. Step 6. Transfer money from your US Paypal account to your US bank.

Details and pictures below.

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To Be Hacked or Not To Be Hacked?

People often ask me how to tell if they might be victims of state-serving adversaries. As I've written before, I don't advocate the position that "everyone is hacked." How then can an organization make informed decisions about their risk profile?

A unique aspect of Chinese targeted threat operations is their tendency to telegraph their intentions. They frequently publish the industry types they intend to target, so it pays to read these announcements.

Adam Segal Tweeted a link to a Xinhua story titled China aims to become world technological power by 2049. The following excerpts caught my attention:

China aims to become a world technological power by 2049 and strives to be a leading nation in innovation and scientific development, according to a government document released on Sunday.

The document, released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, or the Cabinet, namely opinions on "deepening technological system reform and accelerating national innovation system construction," sets the goal for the country to be "in the ranks of innovative nations" by 2020...

In this intro we read two key dates: 2020 for "in the ranks of innovative nations" and 2049 for a "world technological power." As we've seen during the last 10-12 years, one of the ways China pursues these goals is to steal intellectual property from target industries. What are those industries?

The development of strategic emerging industries, such as energy preservation and environmental protection, new-generation information technology, biology, advanced equipment manufacturing, new energy and material as well as green vehicles, should be accelerated, it said.

Major breakthroughs of key technologies should be materialized in sectors including electronic information, energy and environment protection, biological medicine and advanced manufacturing, it said.

Those industries have already been targeted and compromised by Chinese intruders. If you work in these areas but aren't actively seeking to detect and respond to Chinese intruders in your enterprise, I recommend taking a closer look at who is using your network.

Later in the document I was somewhat surprised to read the following:

And technological innovation should be made in industries that were related to people's livelihoods, such as health, food and drug safety, and disaster relief, the document said.

The underlined industries explain some activity I've seen recently, and it may be a warning for those of you in those sectors.

The last part of the document I would like to mention says the following: It called for an enhanced system to integrate the technologies for military use and those for civilian purposes.

The document said the nation's technological plan would be more open to the outside world in terms of cooperation, and international academic institutions and multinational companies would be encouraged to set up R&D centers.

None of that is new, but it shows the Chinese commitment to applying "dual use" technologies to both sides of that equation. It also shows the Chinese think they can still fool Western companies into sending engineers to China, where stealing IP is as easy as setting foot in an office building. Unfortunately plenty of Western companies appear to be falling for this ploy.

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The Best Way to Bypass the Great Firewall of China (Windows and Linux)

FreeGate is the way to go to freely use the Internet in China

Update: Click here for my review of other VPNs and Proxies

If you have plans on going to China for vacation, or living there for any length of time, you will need to prepare to visit the Great Firewall of China. Visiting this tourist attraction is mandatory! As most people know, many websites are blocked in China. Mostly websites related to social interaction such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and most the popular blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger (which means if you are reading this, you are either not in China, or you have already figured out a way to bypass the Great Firewall of China.

I have lived in China now for a year and have tried many different tools to try to use the internet freely. I have tried various VPNS, Hotspot Shield and Freegate. The best (and freest) is Freegate.

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Israeli Agents Steal Korean Tech for Chinese Customer

Thanks to the show Asia Biz Today I learned of an industrial espionage case involving South Korea, Israel, and China.

In brief, agents of the South Korean branch of an Israeli company stole technology from two South Korean companies, and passed the loot to Chinese and Taiwanese companies.

On June 27th the Yonhap news agency in South Korea reported the following:

Key technologies to manufacture advanced flat-panel displays at Samsung Mobile Display and LG Display have been leaked by an local unit of an Israeli company, local prosecutors said Wednesday, raising concerns the leakage could pose a major threat to the national interest.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office indicted under physical detention three employees at the local unit of an Israeli inspection equipment supplier, including a 36-year-old man surnamed Kim, on charges of leaking key local technologies used to produce active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays and white organic light-emitting diode (White OLED) displays.

They also indicted without physical detention three other employees and the local unit, the prosecutors said, without identifying the Israeli firm.

According to the prosecution, the indicted employees photographed circuit diagrams of yet-to-be-released 55-inch AMOLED television panels when they were let into Samsung and LG's manufacturing factories to check defects of inspection equipment from November of last year to January of this year.

They stored the images on portable memory cards and slipped them into their shoes, belts and wallets to avoid suspicion, prosecutors said...

Prosecutors said the stolen information was likely relayed to the Israeli headquarters and Chinese and Taiwanese display-making rivals, including the biggest Chinese panel manufacturer BOE.

"It is very likely that the stolen technologies have been given by the Israeli firm to foreign rivals," a prosecution official said. "This may expectedly deal a massive economic blow to the entire nation and can cause a sea change in the landscape of the global display market."

This Korea Herald story revealed the name of the Israeli company and an additional receiving company in Taiwan:

According to prosecutors, circumstantial evidence suggests that circuit diagrams of the two companies’ active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, or Amoled, display technology have been leaked to their rivals in China and Taiwan, including the BOE Technology Group in China, and AU Optronics Corp. in Taiwan...

Prosecutors have indicted six officials from Orbotech Korea, the Korean subsidiary of Orbotech Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in automated optical inspection equipment, on charges of technology theft...

Prosecutors say Orbotech officials in China and Taiwan sought to win inspection contracts from display panel manufacturers there using the circuit diagrams as bait.

So, while the original article implied theft for purposes of duplication, the second article implied theft "to win inspection contracts." That is a narrower function and in line with Orbotech's corporate function as "an international developer and producer of automated optical inspection (AOI) and related imaging and computer-aided manufacturing systems" according to Wikipedia.

Image credits: Korea IT Times.

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Thoughts on Air-Sea Battle Briefing at Brookings

Last month I attended an event at the Brookings Institute about the Air-Sea Battle concept, which I mentioned in China's High-Tech Military Threat and Air Sea Battle yesterday. A good companion to the briefing is the article Air-Sea Battle: Promoting Stability in an Era of Uncertainty published in February in the journal The American Interest. In that article, General Norton A. Schwartz, USAF (at right in the picture) & Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert, USN write:

When Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta introduced the new strategic guidance for the Department of Defense, he stated that the “smaller and leaner” Joint Force of the future must be prepared, in conjunction with allies and partners, to confront and defeat aggressors anywhere in the world, “including those seeking to deny our power projection.”

The new strategic guidance directs U.S. forces to maintain the “ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate is challenged” and to be “capable of deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary...

With Air-Sea Battle, we are reinvigorating the historic partnership between our two departments to protect the freedom of the commons and ensure operational access for the Joint Force.

Air-Sea Battle provides the concepts, capabilities and investments needed to overcome the challenges posed by emerging threats to access like ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced submarines and fighters, electronic warfare and mines...

Air-Sea Battle relies on highly integrated and tightly coordinated operations across warfighting domains—for example, using cyber methodologies to defeat threats to aircraft, or using aircraft to defeat threats on and under the sea. During the Brookings event, the General and the Admiral were careful not to mention China at all. In fact, I checked the transcript and didn't read either of them saying that word, although reporters asked them about China.

I don't have a problem with that, although I think it's a little disingenuous. The remainder of the American Interest article explains a variety of so-called A2AD scenarios, while also never saying "China." It does mention Iran, however.

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China's High-Tech Military Threat and Air Sea Battle

Two months ago Bill Gertz published an excellent article titled China's High-Tech Military Threat. I wanted to share a few excerpts that resonated with me.

[I]n November 2011, the Pentagon conducted an unusual rollout of a new military unit called the Air Sea Battle Office...

The concept calls for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps to integrate forces and other capabilities to defeat what the Pentagon has labeled “anti-access and area denial weapons” — high-technology arms that can prevent or deter the United States military from operating in certain areas...

When pressed on the question of whom the initiative was targeting, one official responded, “The concept isn’t about a specific actor; it’s about countering anti-access, area-denial capabilities...”

[T]he Air Sea Battle Concept is the culmination of a strategy fight that began nearly two decades ago inside the Pentagon and U.S. government at large over how to deal with a single actor: the People’s Republic of China...

The reluctance to publicly identify Chinese belligerence as the impetus for the concept is merely a ruse to mollify adherents of a “Benign China” school of foreign policy — the losing side of the long internal policy fight.

The ideological godfather of the benign-China school is Harvard professor and former Clinton administration defense policymaker Joseph S. Nye. In 1995, Nye put forth the notion that if the United States treated China as a threat, it would become a threat.

Nye, who is also one of the progenitors of the soft-power school of policymaking now adopted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has called the notion of a threatening China a self-fulfilling prophecy only warmongers and defense contractors would or could celebrate.

The Gertz article continues by describing the battle for leadership between the "Benign China" and "realist" China schools of thought.

For more information on this issue, please consider reading another Gertz article: Panda War.

Photo credit: ChineseDefence.com

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Cooking Banana Bread in a Rice Cooker

One thing I have noticed in China is that I have had to be a bit more creative here when it comes to cooking. I can't use a full size oven, so I have to make due with a toaster oven. I have been on a banana bread craze and while looking for better ways to cook it I came up with a pretty neat method: cooking it in a rice cooker.

You can find my recipe for banana bread here.

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Banana Frosting for your Banana Bread

If you are looking for a way to spice up your banana bread, you should try making some banana frosting!

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Blender Banana Bread Recipe - The Quickest and Easiest Way to Make Banana Bread

I am always looking for the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to do things. I think I have it perfected as far as banana bread goes. Below the recipe ingredients I will have more detailed instructions with a bit of information

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The Toughest Question in Digital Security

The toughest question in digital security is "who cares?"

The recent Tweet by hogfly (@4n6ir) made me ponder this question. He points to an Aviation Week story by David Fulghum, Bill Sweetman, and Amy Butler titled China's Role In JSF's Spiraling Costs. It says in part:

How much of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s spiraling cost in recent years can be traced to China’s cybertheft of technology and the subsequent need to reduce the fifth-generation aircraft’s vulnerability to detection and electronic attack?

That is a central question that budget planners are asking, and their queries appear to have validity. Moreover, senior Pentagon and industry officials say other classified weapon programs are suffering from the same problem. Before the intrusions were discovered nearly three years ago, Chinese hackers actually sat in on what were supposed to have been secure, online program-progress conferences, the officials say.

The full extent of the connection is still being assessed, but there is consensus that escalating costs, reduced annual purchases and production stretch-outs are a reflection to some degree of the need for redesign of critical equipment. Examples include specialized communications and antenna arrays for stealth aircraft, as well as significant rewriting of software to protect systems vulnerable to hacking.

It is only recently that U.S. officials have started talking openly about how data losses are driving up the cost of military programs and creating operational vulnerabilities, although claims of a large impact on the Lockheed Martin JSF are drawing mixed responses from senior leaders. All the same, no one is saying there has been no impact.

While claiming ignorance of details about effects on the stealth strike aircraft program, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, says that Internet technology has “led to egregious pilfering of intellectual capital and property. The F-35 was clearly a target,” he confirms.

The point of this article is to question the impact, in business and operational terms, of the cyberwar China continues to prosecute against the West.

The toughest question in digital security is "who cares" because it is usually extremely difficult to determine the impact of an intrusion. Consider the steps required to define the business and operational impact of the theft of intellectual property (as one example -- there are many others).

1. The victim must learn that an intrusion occurred.
2. The victim must determine exactly what IP was stolen.
3. The victim must understand the adversary's capability and intention to exploit the stolen IP.
4. The victim must recognize when the adversary exploits the stolen IP by using it in an operational context.
5. The victim must determine what countermeasures or changes in courses of actions are possible to mitigate the adversary's exploitation of the stolen IP.
6. The victim must synthesize most or all of the previous points into an assessment of the business and operational cost of the IP theft.

Steps 1 and 2 are largely technical, but 3-6 are more business-focused. From what I have seen, everyone who is a victim in the ongoing cyberwar struggles to conduct "battle damage assessment" (BDA) for digital intrusions. Articles like the one I cited are examples showing how difficult it is to determine if anyone should care about China's exploitation of Western IP.

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National Public Radio Talks Chinese Digital Espionage

When an organization like National Public Radio devotes an eleven minute segment to Chinese digital espionage, even the doubters have to realize something is happening. Rachel Martin's story China's Cyber Threat A High-Stakes Spy Game is excellent and well worth your listening (.mp3) or reading time.

Rachel interviews three sources: Ken Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution, Congressman Mike Rogers (chairman of the House Intelligence Committee), and James Lewis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

If you listen to the report you'll hear James Lewis mention "a famous letter from three Chinese scientists to Deng Xiaoping in March of 1986 that says we're falling behind the Americans. We're never going to catch up unless we make a huge investment in science and technology."

James is referring to the so-called 863 Program (Wikipedia). You can also read directly from the Chinese government itself here, e.g.:

In 1986, to meet the global challenges of new technology revolution and competition, four Chinese scientists, WANG Daheng, WANG Ganchang, YANG Jiachi, and CHEN Fangyun, jointly proposed to accelerate China’s high-tech development. With strategic vision and resolution, the late Chinese leader Mr. DENG Xiaoping personally approved the National High-tech R&D Program, namely the 863 Program.

Implemented during three successive Five-year Plans, the program has boosted China’s overall high-tech development, R&D capacity, socio-economic development, and national security.

In April 2001, the Chinese State Council approved continued implementation of the program in the 10th Five-year Plan. As one of the national S&T program trilogy in the 10th Five-year Plan, 863 Program continues to play its important role.

1. Orientation and Objectives

Objectives of this program during the 10th Five-year Plan period are to boost innovation capacity in the high-tech sectors, particularly in strategic high-tech fields, in order to gain a foothold in the world arena; to strive to achieve breakthroughs in key technical fields that concern the national economic lifeline and national security; and to achieve “leap-frog” development in key high-tech fields in which China enjoys relative advantages or should take strategic positions in order to provide high-tech support to fulfill strategic objectives in the implementation of the third step of our modernization process.

There's more to read, but that gives you a sense of what the "letter" involves.

I hope this NPR story helps some of you realize that the China threat is not "hype." Consider Dr Lieberthal in relation to Chairman Rogers and Jim Lewis. You can decide to try to refute their positions by saying that the Chairman has "an agenda," and Mr Lewis is essentially too distant from the problem. I personally think Chairman Rogers is right on the money, but I sometimes question where Mr Lewis gets his information.

Dr Lieberthal, however, is one of the world's finest minds regarding China (Wikipedia entry), and he served in the Clinton administration. He even wrote a book on how to achieve corporate success in China (Managing the China Challenge: How to Achieve Corporate Success in the People's Republic). He is not a "China hawk" trying to start some kind of "war" with the Chinese, yet he takes the threat seriously enough to discuss the countermeasures he takes when visiting China ten times a year. Do those who doubt the China threat still believe it's all "hype"?

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Thoughts on 2011 ONCIX Report

Many of you have probably seen coverage of the 2011 ONCIX Reports to Congress: Foreign Economic and Industrial Espionage. I recommend every security professional read the latest edition (.pdf). I'd like to highlight the key findings of the 2011 version:

Pervasive Threat from Adversaries and Partners

Sensitive US economic information and technology are targeted by the intelligence services, private sector companies, academic and research institutions, and citizens of dozens of countries.

• Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage. US private sector firms and cybersecurity specialists have reported an onslaught of computer network intrusions that have originated in China, but the IC cannot confirm who was responsible.

• Russia’s intelligence services are conducting a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from US targets.

• Some US allies and partners use their broad access to US institutions to acquire sensitive US economic and technology information, primarily through aggressive elicitation and other human intelligence (HUMINT) tactics. Some of these states have advanced cyber capabilities.

What's so significant about that section? The ONCIX is naming names right from the start, and concentrating squarely on China and Russia.

Contrast the 2011 approach with the 2008 report. If you search for "China" in the 2008 edition, you'll see only these sections in the main body of the report:

• China and Russia accounted for a considerable portion of foreign visits to DOE facilities during FY 2008.


• China continues to be a leading competitor in the race for clean coal technology.


• The DNI Open Source Center (OSC) contributes to the CI community’s effort against
  China by monitoring foreign-language publications and Web sites for indications of
  threats and sharing this information with appropriate agencies, including law
  enforcement.

That's very different from the direct approach taken in 2011. However, if you check "Appendix B: Selected Arrests and Convictions for Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage Cases in FY 2008," in the 2008 report, you find China listed as the perpetrator of 7 of the 23 cases! So, although China has been an active threat for many years, only now is the ONCIX shining the spotlight on that country (along with Russia) as primary threats to US secrets and intellectual property.

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Republican Presidential Candidates on China

(Photo: Business Insider)

This is not a political blog, so I'm not here to endorse candidates. However, I do want to point out another example of high-level policymakers discussing ongoing activities by China against the US and other developed economies.

First, the Washington Post published an editorial by Mitt Romney which included the following:

China seeks advantage through systematic exploitation of other economies. It misappropriates intellectual property by coercing “technology transfers” as a condition of market access; enables theft of intellectual property, including patents, designs and know-how; hacks into foreign commercial and government computers...

The result is that China sells high-quality products to the United States at low prices. But too often the source of that high quality is American innovations stolen by Chinese companies.

I missed this in August, but former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman said the following during a debate:

Huntsman Jr. pointed to China as a culprit in what he described as “the new war field” — cyber-intrusion as a way to steal corporate and government secrets. “Not only have government institutions been hacked into, but private individuals have been hacked, too. It’s gone beyond the pale,” Huntsman said.

The third candidate in the photo, Rick Perry, is also involved in the China debate. He's currently defending Texas' relationship with Huawei.

I'm going to be fairly strict regarding comment publishing for this post, so please be civil, nonpolitical, and relevant. Again, my point is to show that Chinese cyber campaigns are now a hot topic in political campaigns.

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Russia v China -- Sound Familiar?

Thanks to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, I read Chinese spy mania sweeps the world, an article not from a Western publication. Rather, it's from Voice of Russia. Does any of this sound familiar?

[T]his is the most powerful secret service based on the principle of attracting all ethnic Chinese, wherever they may live. An adherent of the “total espionage” strategy, Beijing even encourages emigration in the hope that its citizens will remain loyal to and useful for their historical homeland after moving to another country...

"The history of China’s espionage activities on Russian armaments is not only limited to one precedent or one type of weapons. One of the top Chinese priorities is to produce complete replicas of Russia’s best machines and weapons, from the Sukhoi Su-33 fighter jet to missiles, aircraft carriers and so on.

This is a truly purpose-oriented strategy of a large country - snatch anything you can and reproduce it domestically," ["IT expert"] Andrei Masalovich points out.

Cynics will point out that perhaps this article is trying to deflect attention from Russia's own espionage activities. However, you can't deny that even the Russians have issues with Chinese operations.

For an example of the sorts of problems Russia is having, see this ABC News story China Still Spies the Old Fashioned Way, Russia Says:

Russia's secretive spy agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), issued a rare statement Wednesday claiming the state had arrested a Chinese citizen who, posing as a translator for official delegations, was working under the direction of the Chinese government in an attempt to buy state secrets from Russians about Russia's S-300 missile system.
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It's All About the Engines

(Photo credit: AINOnline)

I just read Big New Chinese Order for Russian Fighter Engines at China Defense Blog, which quoted AINOnline:

China has placed additional orders for Russian AL-31-series fighter engines. State arms trade agency Rosoboronexport clinched two big contracts earlier this year...

To serve them, Salut has established partnerships with Limin Corp. and Tyan Li company in Chengdu on deliveries and manufacturing of spare parts for both the AL-31F and the AL-31FN. Russia has also agreed to provide all necessary maintenance and repair documentation to the Chinese partners.

To see China treats or will treat Western aircraft and aircraft engine makers, look no further than Russia.

The comments in the CDB post pointed me to this engine comparison for the J-20, which I sometimes mention in my classes. Essentially the Chinese appear to be testing two engines on the J-20, because they are not sure if they will use a Russian-made engine (or copy) or an "indigenous" engine (which is probably a copy of someone else's technology).

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C-SPAN Posts Video of Tuesday Hearing

You can now access video of Tuesday's House Select Committee on Intelligence Hearing on Cybersecurity at C-SPAN.

Some people are already asking "what's new" about this. For me, what's new is that the chairman of the HPSCI is pointing his finger straight at the threat, and letting the world know in an open hearing that the adversary's actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. This is exactly the sort of attention and action that the threat deserves and I applaud the Chairman and HPSCI for pursuing this course.

Remember that the HPSCI is more likely to hold closed hearings than open hearings due to the nature of its classified intelligence oversight work. By conducting an open hearing, Chairman Rogers wanted to send a clear message to victims, the public, and the adversary.
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Inside a Congressional Hearing on Digital Threats

Today I was fortunate to attend a hearing of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). That's me on the far left of the photo, seated behind our MANDIANT CEO Kevin Mandia. I'd like to share a few thoughts on the experience.

First, I was impressed by the attitudes of all those involved with HPSCI, from the staffers to the Representatives themselves. They were all courteous and wanted to hear the opinions of Kevin and the other two witnesses (Art Coviello from RSA and Michael Hayden from the Chertoff Group), whether before, during, or after the hearing.

Second, I thought Reps Mike Rogers (R-MI, HPSCI Chairman) and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD, HPSCI Ranking Member) offered compelling opening statements. Rep Rogers squarely pointed the finger at our overseas adversaries. As reported by PCWorld in U.S. Lawmakers Point to China as Cause of Cyberattacks, Rep Rogers said:

"I don't believe that there is a precedent in history for such a massive and sustained intelligence effort by a government to blatantly steal commercial data and intellectual property...

China's economic espionage has reached an intolerable level and I believe that the United States and our allies in Europe and Asia have an obligation to confront Beijing and demand that they put a stop to this piracy."

You can watch all of Rep Rogers' statement on YouTube as Rep. Mike Rogers criticizes Chinese economic cyber-espionage (currently 21 views -- let's increase that!)

General Hayden reinforced Rep Rogers' sentiment with this quote:

"As a professional intelligence officer, I step back in awe of the breadth, the depth, the sophistication, the persistence of the Chinese espionage effort against the United States of America."

Third, I was very pleased that this hearing was conducted in an open forum, and not behind closed doors. While I haven't found the whole hearing online or on TV yet (aside from Rep Rogers' statement and that of Rep Myrick (R-NC)), I encourage as much discussion as possible about this issue.

One of General Hayden's points was that we are not having a debate about how to address digital threats because no one agrees what the facts are. If you work counter-intrusion operations every day, or participate in the intelligence community, you know what's happening. Outside that world, you likely think "APT" and the like are false concepts. We can really only build a national approach to countering the threat if enough people know what is happening.

As more information becomes available I will likely publish it via my @taosecurity Twitter account.
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Chinese Espionage in Five Minutes

This evening I watched last week's episode of This Week in Defense News with Vago Muradian. Vago's last guest was David Wise, author of Tiger Trap. If you want to learn as much as possible about Chinese espionage in a five minute interview, I recommend watching History of China spying on U.S.. I hope this book encourages attention at the highest levels of the US government and industry.
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Impressions: Tiger Trap

I just finished reading Tiger Trap by David Wise. I read the whole book (so my "impressions" label isn't really accurate, because I use that for books I didn't fully read). I don't feel like writing an entire review but I wanted to capture a few thoughts.

First, if you know nothing about Chinese espionage against the United States, read Tiger Trap. I didn't think Tiger Trap was the easiest book to read about the subject, but I haven't seen any other source cover so much history in one volume.

Second, it seems the Chinese prefer to use human resources to steal classified information, mainly because accessing classified networks is tougher than accessing unclassified networks. Still, there are plenty of cases where humans physically stole unclassified but sensitive information. Most of these predate the Web however.

Third, the Chinese like to "get good people to do bad things," as I Tweeted last week (citing page 16). In other words, China appeals to its overseas ethnic community to steal information because China "is a poor country," and it "needs to develop." (Oddly enough I have read these exact words in articles by various people who brush off reports of espionage.) While some spies act out of greed or revenge or a need to feel important, it seems plenty of other spies think they are really doing the right thing, leveling the playing field, or even helping both sides!

If anyone can provide the names of other resources describing Chinese espionage, I would appreciate the comment.
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Bejtlich Cited in Chinese Article on APT

I found it ironic to see the names Richard Bejtlich and MANDIANT appearing in the article How to reduce the losses caused by APT attack? The reason this is funny is that the article appears in a Chinese-language story, published by a site operating in Beijing!

You can read the Google Translation if you can't read the original.

According to Tianji Media Group:

Established in January 1997, ChinaByte was the first IT news website in China.

So, welcome to the APT coverage!
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