21st Century Chinese Cyberwarfare

The UK’s 2010 National Security Strategy identified cyberattacks as one of the four highest-priority risks faced by the UK. President Obama has declared cybersecurity as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges the US faces as a nation.

There is an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) posed by organised crime and state level entities, targeting large multi-national corporations and foreign governments. Organisations of all sizes can suffer collateral damage. China has been regularly identified in the press as a major player in modern cyberwar activities but, until now, little has been written to describe the depth and severity of this threat.

21st Century Chinese Cyberwarfare, from IT Governance Publishing, is a comprehensive and in-depth review of the Chinese role in cyberwarfare. Drawing on a combination of cultural, historical, business, linguistic and personal experience, the book attempts to explain China to the uninitiated. It describes how the combination of Chinese Communism and the unique cultural and linguistic heritage of the People’s Republic of China are driving Chinese cyber activity.

Authoritarian Informationalism: China’s Approach to Internet Sovereignty

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Min Jiang

University of Pennsylvania – Center for Global Communication Studies
SAIS Review of International Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 71-89, 2010

Abstract:
In light of the Google-China conflict, this article discusses the issue of Internet sovereignty and, in particular, draws attentions to the various sources of regime legitimacy that undergird the Chinese government’s claim to Internet sovereignty. By building and promoting state legitimacy in economy, nationalism, ideology, culture, and governance, Beijing has been arguably successful in gaining popular compliance and cementing its political rule despite grassroots challenges. In the foreseeable future, China’s Internet policies will continue to reflect an Internet development and regulatory model – authoritarian informationalism – that combines elements of capitalism, authoritarianism, and Confucianism.

Confessions of a KGB spy

Boris Karpichkov worked as a KGB agent in the 1980s before fleeing to Britain as a place of safety. He talks about his career, why Russian spies are again targeting Britain – and why he’ll never stop looking over his shoulder

Boris Karpichkov, who worked for the KGB in Latvia during the Soviet era. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

It is the perfect place to meet a man from the KGB. Boris Karpichkov – former KGB operative and double agent – suggests we meet under the shadow of Marble Arch in central London. I am late. But he is easy to spot: a gaunt, thin, pale figure with the slightly haunted look of someone who has spent their career in the twilight world of espionage.

Since fleeing to Britain in the late 1990s Karpichkov has preferred to keep a low profile – unlike another, better known Moscow agent who fled to London, one Alexander Litvinenko. Now, with the KGB’s most famous graduate, Vladimir Putin, about to get his old Kremlin job back, can Karpichkov shed light on the murky world of Russian spying?

Born in 1959 in Soviet Latvia, Karpichkov grew up in a patriotic communist family and became a mechanical engineer. The KGB approached him when he was working in a factory making parts for the aerospace industry. He enrolled at the KGB’s academy in Minsk in 1984, learning, among other things, how to shoot, and how to kill with his bare hands. He was assigned to the Riga branch of the KGB’s prestigious Second Directorate, specialising in counter-intelligence. He reached the rank of Major.

Switzerland hosts counterterrorism powwow

switzerland (Photo credit: siette)

Feb 24, 2012 – 15:12

A newly created counterterrorism network has met in Interlaken for Swiss-led talks on how to move forward and cooperate with other international bodies.

Switzerland is one of 28 countries that joined the Global Counterterrorism Forum in September. The conference on Thursday and Friday was attended by around 100 representatives of the member states, the United Nations, and the European Union.

Opening the conference, Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said that in order to eliminate breeding grounds of radicalism and terrorism, it was crucial to strengthen the rule of law and criminal prosecution.

REVIEW — Crisis Mapping: A Phenomenon and Tool in Emergencies

November 2011

The emergence of crisis mapping is an example of how an increasing number of citizens now participate in crisis communication. To understand this trend, a more differentiated view of crisis mapping as a phenomenon and as a tool is needed to understand its benefits and limitations as well as its larger political and social effects in various settings.

© 2011 Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich

Download:

• English (PDF · 4 pages · 392 KB)
• German (PDF · 4 pages · 466 KB)
• French (PDF · 4 pages · 479 KB)

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Author: Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Jennifer Giroux

Editor: Daiel Trachsler

Series: CSS Analysis in Security Policy

Issue: 103

China, Corporations and Internet Censorship

24 February 2012

Internet services get censored in China

The Chinese government has developed sophisticated methods to monitor and repress the social-media activities of its ‘netizens’. Internet censorship in China also reflects the tangled relationship Beijing presently has with Western internet companies.

Prepared by: ISN staff

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This week we have tried to determine just how much the internet and social media empower individuals or aid and abet corrupt and coercive regimes. Our unsurprising conclusion is that such media is Janus-faced – it does indeed liberate and repress. In the latter case, governments have become increasingly sophisticated in how they use the internet to maintain their grip on power. In this respect, the Chinese government’s manipulation of social media to monitor and repress the activities of its ‘netizens’ stands out as a representative case study – a negative case study, unfortunately, that also reflects the tangled relationship Beijing presently has with Western internet companies.

Social unrest, social media, and Chinese censorship

Control and manipulation of mass media outlets has been part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPC) mandate for generations. However, the emergence of the internet and social media such as Facebook

Kurdish War -Talk Is Treason

Image via Wikipedia

February 24, 2012: The head of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq has asked the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down its weapons. The KRG leadership has urged the PKK to end the fighting and become a political party. The KRG recently hosed what it called a Kurdish National Conference. Members of the Turkish Kurdish party, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), attended. The conference in remembrance of the Republic of Mabahad, a short-lived Kurdish state (1946) located in northwestern Iran.

February 23, 2012: French police have agreed to treat a recent attack on a Turkish newspaper office in Paris as terrorist acts. Earlier this month, pro-PKK demonstrators attacked Turkish newspaper offices in France and Germany. There were at least two prior attacks last year in France.

February 22, 2012: The Turkish government estimated that 2,000 PKK rebels are operating near the Turkish-Iraqi border, most of them from bases in northern Iraq.

February 20, 2012: Turkish anti-terror police arrested ten people suspected of belonging to the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), which the government considers to be a front group for the PKK. The government claimed the group intended to commit acts of arson. Police acknowledged that they had been monitoring the group’s activities on Facebook.