Obama warns Xi that continued cybertheft would damage relations, U.S. officials said

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

President Obama confronted Chinese President Xi Jinping here Saturday with specific evidence of China’s widespread theft of intellectual property from U.S. companies and warned the newly minted Chinese leader that continued ­cybertheft would undermine economic ties between the rival nations, U.S. officials said.

The discussion came near the end of a high-stakes and unusual summit, where Obama and Xi reached breakthroughs on other critical issues, including an agreement to work together to denuclearize North Korea and to confront global climate change.

Yet in eight hours of private talks during two days at an expansive desert estate here, the most tension between Obama and Xi seemed to surround the contentious issue of cybersecurity.

“It is now at the center of the relationship; it is not an adjunct issue,” Thomas E. Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser and a participant in the discussions, told reporters.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-warns-xi-that-continued-cybertheft-would-damage-relations-us-officials-said/2013/06/08/04843edc-d075-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

[okaawhatever]

1. Last night Rachel Maddow had on her show that China hacked into both McCain and Obama's computers

during the election. One thing that was on her show was that McCain had written a letter to the new President of Taiwan. He received a letter from Mainland China saying basically "don't cozy up to those traitorous f$#ers". Problem was...the letter was only on a campaign computer in draft form. Hmmm...

[JackN415]

2. DU cybersecurity wiz, how much does it cost and how difficult it is

to build a nation-wide standard of cyber-defense software that all entities, public and private can use (like an anti-virus software) to reduce the risk of cyber attack?

I know that where I work, we are forced to change passwords often, are constantly warned about phishing etc. and I myself often spot it right away as the url or the IP address gives away the scam cover.

Google mail now often gives some warning as well.

This is an ignorant question because I don't even have the right concept and framework, so please rephrase/reframe the issue as needed.

[jtuck004]

6. You can make the best system in the world, but as long as people are involved, it will be fallible.

And we can make the best firewalls in the world, get you to change your password every 20 days, create servers with secure channels for clients to use, etc - but it all runs on hardware built in the countries where the malevolent person is attacking you from.

And new software comes out every day, all ripe for exploitation. And, very likely, new would-be cybercriminals learn new techniques every day.(Note - not talking about hacker who are just trying to see how things work, go in and out. I mean people with truly malevolent leanings.)

On top of that, you have thousands of "companies" who want to hire someone for $23,000 a year to run120 windows servers, from NT to 2012, 3 sql databases, keep their single user Access database running on a network and shared by 250 people, 75 desktops with varying years of operating systems, and, oh yeah, take care of all the security too. And complain that the IT people cost too much.

So, really, what is needed is some kind of magic firewall that will protect us from all of our own bad behaviors while still allowing us to do anything we want. Kinda like that fence the teabaggers want to build around the country. Both are problematic.

All you can really stop is most of it. There are literally hundreds of thousands of potential criminals out there every day, and as long as you expose your network to the world, they have nothing to lose by trying to get in.

It's not an ignorant question at all - you are concerned about your job, your bank account, etc, and you have every right to be. But the worst problem is the people who lead you to believe there is a solution, and there isn't, unless one thinks that telling people not to be bad is going to work. . It's on ongoing, evolving process, with winners appearing on both sides from time to time.

Just do the best you can, and have a backup plan where possible.

[Arctic Dave]

3. And then Xi laughed a hearty laugh and patted Obama

on the head and told him to go fetch him a another corporation to bring to his country.

[Herlong]

4. So cold

and so, so true.

[Lasher]

5. WTF, is Blackwater hacking us now?

[TRoN33]

7. Without the doubt...

Republican President won't have any balls to talk the exact words that President Obama just said to Chinese President Xi. Let see which directions both countries will go after this.

[dipsydoodle]

8. US-China summit ends with accord on all but cyber-espionage

But the common ground they found was not quite what the White House expected as talks on cyber-espionage were overshadowed by revelations of Washington's own cyber-warfare strategy.

Both leaders discussed the issue for several hours, according to aides, but the best that the US was able to boast afterwards was that Beijing was no longer unaware of the depth of feeling on the subject.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/us-china-summit-barack-obama-xi-jinping