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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 60 Henderson and others have tried to demonstrate that what is true in the realm of human intelligence-gathering is reflected in Chinese information operations. That is, rather than assign a targeted goal for collection, the intelligence apparatus tends to rely on sheer weight of information to develop a global perspective. Experts have hypothesized that this is exactly the informal association the government and the Red Hacker Alliance share. The Chinese government appreciates the value of the Chinese computer underground and has made tentative contacts with them. From the government’s perspective, the hackers make excellent candidates for mounting information operations against overseas targets. They have demonstrated that they are creative, highly patriotic. They have the ability to launch sophisticated attacks, and are motivated to do so. That is not to suggest that every member of the Red Hacker Alliance has informal connections with the intelligence bureaucracy. Rather, there are probably very few members who have any dealings with the government. But this relationship is not straightforward or simple. At times, it must be uneasy and require a delicate balance of constraints and freedoms. A more detailed understanding of how the parties interact, especially where mutual interests converge, will enable us to uncover the complex cost-benefit analysis that the government must calculate when it allows the Red Hacker Alliance to operate within its borders. From the government’s perspective, the Chinese computer underground must bring benefits that outweigh their liabilities. Otherwise, the Red Hacker Alliance’s activities would be halted. There are very few indications that the government is now making any efforts to shut down the Red Hacker Alliance, surely a telling sign that the cost-benefit analysis is in the underground’s favor. So, if this is not a state-sponsored organization, what are the factors that make it worth the government’s while to allow the alliance to operate? The most obvious reason for the government’s tolerance of the Red Hacker Alliance is that it is likely that it receives valuable information. Thousands of attacks per day could surely fill in some of the gray areas of a composite intelligence picture. Furthermore, as a nonstate actor, the Red Hacker Alliance provides Beijing with plausible deniability. Even if freelance hackers could be positively identified, their actions are easily disavowed as those actions of patriotic youth, and certainly not of the government. In addition to intelligence collection, and the distinct possibility that the government and the alliance have financial ties, nationalist politics also bind the computer underground and the government together. The political sphere can be divided into two distinct categories, domestic and international. Domestic political hacking targets dissidents and separatist social movements found inside China - and extends to overseas supporters. The targets of these attacks are groups that are perceived to challenge the “unity of the motherland,” or question the legitimacy of the Communist Party, such as Falun Gong, the Tibet movement, and democracy activists and dissident networks such as Human Rights in China. Since at least 2002, dissident groups
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 61 operating outside of China have claimed that they have experienced targeted malware attacks such as the ones we considered earlier. It has also been noted that such attacks have coincided with calls by officials from the Ministry of Public Security for more aggressive measures against hostile “foreign forces subverting China via the Internet.” When we consider the international sphere, we see that Beijing has been able to turn to the Red Hacker Alliance as a proxy force as well as a rallying force for Chinese solidarity. Any historical account of the computer underground in China shows an organization that aggressively supports government policy through sophisticated online operations. Positive public perception of the alliance’s nationalistic posturing also offers some degree of protection and support from the central government. The Chinese public tends to see hackers as a voice of the people, capable of reaching across great distances to right the wrongs done to China by her enemies. In certain circles, famous hackers are revered as Hollywood stars might be, and not as criminals. Let us now consider evidence that the central government is engaged in tentative efforts to recruit members of the computer underground. Evidence drawn from Chinese Internet forums and news broadcasts clearly demonstrates that members of the Red Hacker Alliance would like to be a state-sponsored entity, and are rather offended not to be. In August 2005, Phoenix television news carried a report that Chinese hackers wanted to be recruited by the government to form Internet security battalions to safeguard the security of domestic networks. Posts on the Honker Union 2 of China’s bulletin board system were in agreement: “We need to move toward standardized honker unions. We can't wait until the nation has a crisis to act; we must be prepared to do something meaningful for the motherland. Why can't we become a government-approved network technology security unit?” According to other postings, various members of the organization had learned of foreign countries establishing “hacker network security units” and felt that China should do the same. On the government side, we can see something similar - some authorities expressing interest in recruiting or learning from members of the Red Hacker Alliance. Following the Sino-American cyber-conflict of 2001, ignited by the mid-air collision of a US reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese fighter aircraft, the renowned Chinese military expert, Prof. Zhang Zhao Zhong, expounded on the vital significance of the seven-day network war. He suggested that these real-life experiences in network warfare should be officially researched for the benefit of the country. As the director of the National Defense University’s Military Science and Technology and Equipment Research Department, Zhang pointed out that during the the cyber-conflict, Chinese hackers had developed many new tactics and gained much experience. The weakness of security on government servers may be a possible explanation for the cyber-espionage charges leveled at China. Non-state hackers inside China, and hackers
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