Chinese hackers compromised the same telecom backdoors the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use to monitor Americans for months.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/politics/chinese-hackers-us-telecoms/index.html

25 Comments

  1. I would bet they were doing it to intercept 2fa keys, so they can log in to your accounts at their leisure.

  2. PagingDoctorBrule on

    I like how when the Chinese are doing it they are hackers (which is correct) but when the US government hacks your data and spies on you, they are “monitors”.

  3. Who could have know this was going to happen, besides all the security experts who warned this would happen?

  4. They want us to be outraged when Random boogeyman wiretap us, yet be passive when our own authorities break the constitution and spy on us.

    I’m more outraged about the latter. Bad guys are suppose to be bad guys. Also, I’ve been outraged since Edward Snowden told us.

  5. Remember, there’s no such thing as backdoors for “just the good guys”. It’s all just math.

  6. johnfkngzoidberg on

    This is why we want to remove all nukes from the world. If it exists, it can be used, stolen, and abused. If you create backdoors, they can be compromised. If you create an army of gun toting robots, they can be compromised and the enemy can steal your soldiers.

  7. Love it.

    Security guard you pay to protect you notices that a door is broken. Doesn’t it fix it, instead uses it to intrude on your privacy.

    Let’s the guy he’s supposed to protect you from also invade your privacy by using the same door.

  8. They created a backdoor to the system and are angry that someone discovered it and is using it. The solution… Don’t create backdoors for anyone.

  9. venerable4bede on

    Note: As far as I can tell from the articles, they didn’t compromise the actual wiretap systems used by law enforcement, only warrants relating to them. An important distinction that the article’s title doesn’t make clear (in fact the title is very misleading)

  10. Gavin_Newscum on

    And? What did they get that US companies haven’t either sold in private data or lost in their own data breach? I get a notification almost weekly about a data breach from my bank, or my mortgage, or whatever.

  11. This is kinda how it works but this is embarrassing.

    Just like when the US was caught spying on Merkel and other EU citizens: [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spied-merkel-other-top-european-officials-through-danish-2021-05-30/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spied-merkel-other-top-european-officials-through-danish-2021-05-30/)

    That or that time they said the quit part out loud: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/nsa-finally-admits-to-spying-on-americans-by-purchasing-sensitive-data/](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/nsa-finally-admits-to-spying-on-americans-by-purchasing-sensitive-data/)

    [https://www.wired.com/story/odni-commercially-available-information-report/](https://www.wired.com/story/odni-commercially-available-information-report/)

    Well, at least you don’t live under an evil dictatorship that spies on its people, you live in a “democracy” that spies on its people. So much better! Now be a good little free citizen and get back to work! This private yacht doesn’t pay for itself!

  12. Plot twist is, that it is actually fine, as they are using the data for pretty awesome science project to become – theirs intentions are actually noble and not malicious, selfish and/or ‘sun tzu-ish’ at all.

  13. ArchangelRenzoku on

    I really, really don’t consider CNN a reliable source of anything. Anyone have a different source for this story?