China goes to war with the West
In the digital sphere
And it's worse than you could imagine
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Hey, so fun story. I don’t know if you remember this,
but there was this whole pandemic caused by a virus of mysterious origin.
Anyway, Chinese hackers stole at least 20 million dollars of American Covid benefits.
Those benefits were of course paid for by taxpayers, so China stole your money.
More directly than how they usually do it:
By tricking you into buying some crummy product
that doesn’t look like it did in the ads, and breaks immediately.
Those hackers were a group called APT41. They’ve been on an FBI wanted list since 2019.
But that’s just one example of a recent deluge of Chinese cyberattacks against the West.
This is cyberwarfare.
And not the kind when you play 11 year-olds online in Fortnite.
This is much worse… but with somehow fewer racial slurs yelled into a microphone.
Though this is a newer tactic,
the Chinese Communist Party is using an old strategy they call, the People’s War.
Originally, Mao Zedong used the concept to build local militias that weren’t
officially a part of the Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army.
That idea has entered the digital age. Most of Chinese cyberwarfare is conducted by civilians,
people who don’t have an official place in the PLA,
but who are doing the Communist Party’s bidding.
This gives the Chinese government the ability “to maintain a level of plausible deniability.”
But even still China is responsible for two thirds of state-sponsored cyber attacks
By this point, every major corporation in the US has been hacked.
Even Burger King. Probably because the Chinese communists heard “Have it your
way” and yelled, “No! Have it *the people’s* way!”
The group I mentioned earlier, APT41, itself is responsible for trillions of
dollars in intellectual property theft from approximately 30 multinational companies.
Let me say that again. Trillions. That’s like the GDP of some countries.
Not really a mystery why the US economy is so bad. Of course, if you want to survive
a recession, look no further than the new Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom.
I have a whole episode on my other channel, Gamers Unbeaten, about how the game is really about
surviving an economic downturn. Link is below. Now the odd thing about all this hacking is,
the US is generally ranked number one in terms of cyberspace and cyber offensive capabilities.
And yet according to FBI Director Christopher Wray,
Chinese hackers “outnumber FBI Cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.”
The difference is the US does not use its cyber capabilities
to steal other countries’ intellectual property.
Chinese hackers have no qualms with theft. According to this
report by cyber security firm Mandiant, “APT41 espionage targeting has generally
aligned with China’s Five-Year economic development plans.”
But China has many of these groups.
For instance, LightBasin, which specializes in attacking global telecommunications companies.
Which is why I still send my messages via smoke signals. This is one cloud they *can’t* hack!
It does sometimes rain though…
And my friends in LA can never read them.
Sometimes, China sends a message with targeted hacking.
After a deadly clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers along a disputed border,
Chinese hackers targeted India’s power grid.
And that was just the beginning.
According to cyber security firm Recorded Future, after the border clash,
there was a 261% increase in the number of suspected state-sponsored
Chinese cyber operations targeting Indian organizations and companies.
Sometimes it's human rights groups, think tanks, and news media.
One Chinese hacker group targeting them is called RedAlpha.
Which is probably also the name of the energy drink those computer nerds live off of.
In this report, Recorded Future “observed RedAlpha registering and weaponizing
hundreds of domains spoofing organizations such as the International Federation for Human Rights,
Amnesty International, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, Radio Free Asia, the American
Institute in Taiwan, and other global government, think tank, and humanitarian organizations.”
Spoofs are one of their main methods of attack. They’re like if
“Weird Al” Yankovic was evil…er.
And of course, the Trump administration accused Chinese government linked hackers
of targeting US election infrastructure. According to the New York Times,
bad actors could hack electronic voting machines and, “undermine election results by altering
tallies as they are transmitted to county offices on election night or posted to public websites.”
The White House is aware of the threat from Chinese hackers.
In this statement, it said, “The United States is deeply concerned that the PRC [People’s Republic
of China] has fostered an intelligence enterprise that includes contract hackers who also conduct
unsanctioned cyber operations worldwide, including for their own personal profit.”
But actually dealing with the problem will be difficult. Because while this is absolutely
China engaged in warfare, the United States as a whole has still failed to realize it is at war.
And this show would not exist without support from viewers like you.
YouTube frequently demonetizes, suppresses, and secretly unsubscribes people from this channel.
Join what I call the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army, by contributing to the show
on our exclusive social media platform on Locals. You’ll get a bunch of cool perks,
including the ability to ask me questions I’ll answer on the show.
Today’s question comes from Thejayman777,
“I have been wanting to do a DNA test to figure out what I'm made of, but I don't
want the CCP to get a hold of my DNA. Is there a company or DNA test that I can take without
that happening? (It's my understanding that alot of that data makes it back to the CCP)”
Well thejayman, you’re right, a lot of that data gets back to China.
China is actively harvesting DNA data from around the world.
One widely used prenatal test sent the DNA data of millions of pregnant women back to China.
This is the most disturbing collection of random people’s DNA since the last
time I saw someone turn on a blacklight inside a hotel room.
As one US expert put it, “They are developing the world’s largest bio database. Once they
have access to your genetic data, it’s not something you can change like a pin code.”
And the concern is that this won’t be limited to just companies that
send DNA data to China. Hacking is also an option.
According to federal data, since 2010 the patient data of 385 million Amercans has been exposed.
We don’t know all the individual hacking groups responsible,
but it's a fair bet that China is behind at least some of it.
To which I can only say, I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration,
Communist indoctrination, communist subversion,
and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Thanks for your question and your support thejayman.
And thank you for watching. Once again I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.