Over the last few weeks we have seen stories emerge about the US vs China, the situation escalating as the empires spin into a full-bore cyber and technology war.  Among the most significant developments, it should be noted that there is a practically zero chance that the five Chinese national army parties charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) will ever see one second in a US court.  The charges were an early step in an ongoing political salvo, focused on posture, protecting American industry and changing the public debate away from surveillance revelations introduced into the public forum by the leaks of ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The charges against the Chinese hackers describe incidents of cyber espionage, by many accounts a growing and serious issue.  The US is also in a curious position, accused of cyber espionage on similar grounds.  The DOJ preemptively defended the US during the press conference announcing the charges when the US Attorney General stated that the US does not conduct cyber economic espionage.

With the smoke from the NSA revelations lingering in the air, trust is at a premium.  The government is trying to reassert this trust connection with American business and foreign businesses that set up shop on US technologies.  The long term effect on our soil has yet to be determined.  Abroad however, it has had little effect in the global arena.  China has escalated again and again.

It started with the denial of cyber economic espionage charges and a counter-accusation against the US over the same behavior.  They then banned Windows 8 from government computers, they have targeted IBM servers, they’ve been talking about checking US tech hardware for spyware, and that’s just the beginning.  The two countries are exchanging shots across the bow, and things are escalating quickly.  China has seized the opportunity created by the culture of mistrust in US intelligence to their advantage.

Report: Chinese spyware on US network gear

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In an exclusive SiliconANGLE interview, a confidential government-affiliated source reports that the top networking gear in the US, from at least four of the major manufacturers of routers and network equipment, has been found in several cases to be infiltrated with Chinese spyware for quite some time.  It has been detected in the code that is embedded into drivers, as these networking companies rely on a very small group of Chinese-manufactured components.

A high level source at a major networking company asked not to be named, but privately confirmed these findings.  Advanced testing conducted in the investigation has seen trace-marked digital information slip outside the network stream off to its final destination.

This parallels but is distinct from the accusations and eventual US ban of spy-loaded network gear from the Chinese network equipment manufacturer Huawei.  The Chinese government is now suggesting that US-based computer and networking equipment is being payloaded with the very same espionage methods of which they have been accused.  The impetus for accusation could possibly be traced back to the Snowden revelations that show the NSA intercepting and modifying computer gear and equipment that was destined for targets of national security interest.

The issue of government surveillance on its own citizens has had a lot of people worried about privacy and a police state in the year that has passed since the Snowden revelations.  The debate on the surveillance issue will not go away anytime soon.  As the US tries to shift the conversation to this ongoing economic warfare, it is important to note that these topics are separate things altogether, but they do intersect.  The NSA’s mission, as uncomfortable as it has been constructed, is to find and track terror targets.  Cyber espionage has affected businesses across the land in significant economic ways. If we can trace harmful attacks to specific agents, then calling out the parties behind these economic attacks is a responsibility that simply must be carried out.

photo credit: Eric Constantineau – www.ericconstantineau.com via photopin cc