S Korean military on alert following attacks by hackers
　

CHINA? : The 'Chosun Ilbo' said investigators traced a virus to the PRC, but had not been able to confirm whether the Chinese military was responsible

AFP, SEOUL
Friday, Jan 04, 2008, Page 1

South Korea's military has been put on alert against overseas hackers who have gained access to some soldiers' personal computers, the defense ministry said yesterday.

It did not identify the country where the hackers are based, but the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said it was China.

The Defense Security Command, which handles counter-intelligence, this week warned all military units to be on the alert against hacking, a ministry spokesman said.

"The alert was issued after the counter-intelligence command found `third-nation' hackers had successfully broken into some soldiers' computers via e-mails to steal private data," the spokesman said. "No military information has been leaked."

The South's military runs its own Intranet, usually disconnected to the Internet, and also has separate servers for processing confidential data, he said.

But the command instructed troops to keep no official data on personal computers and also to update anti-virus programs.

The spokesman said that hackers used emails entitled in Korean "Current state of the North Korean army's capabilities" to arouse the curiosity of soldiers.

The hacking virus starts working when the emails are opened.

The newspaper said military investigators traced the hackers to China, but failed to identify whether they are ordinary citizens or military personnel.

It noted that China launched a military unit called NET Force to carry out online warfare against enemy computer networks in 2000, with 1 million civilian "red hackers" operating in the country.

The Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a state think-tank affiliated with the defense ministry, said one of its researchers had his computer hacked by a Chinese in 2004.

"The Chinese hacker took out private data, neither official nor confidential, from the researcher's personal computer while pretending to be a Korean e-mailer," a spokesman said.

South Korea is one of the world's most wired societies with 34 million people or 70 percent of the population using the Internet.

Enough muddle-headed warnings


Friday, Jan 04, 2008, Page 8

After six weeks of bitter wrangling over the voting format to be used in next week's legislative election and referendums, it seemed that a deal had been reached. But the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) suddenly announced on Monday that it would boycott both referendums, including its own. A boycott also looks likely for the two UN referendums to be held during the presidential election in March.

The decision came just a few weeks after KMT vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) allegedly told American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt that the KMT was insisting on the two-step voting process to frustrate the DPP-initiated referendum on entering the UN using the name "Taiwan."

It would be interesting to know if Burghardt's conversations with any of the KMT officials he met during his visit touched on the subject of a boycott, as any decision to shun the UN plebiscite in March would certainly fall in line with Washington's very public opposition to the process.

Despite repeated assurances from Washington that it is not interfering in Taiwan's democracy, the notion that multiple warnings from the world's most powerful nation and Taiwan's sole security guarantor will have no effect on public sentiment ahead of the poll is disingenuous, to say the least.

The message emanating from Washington is that the referendum will alter the cross-strait "status quo," but the question must be asked again: Why is it that only Taiwan is capable of disturbing this fictional balancing act? Beijing's mounting aggression has never earned it public rebukes of this order.

In a September speech to the US-Taiwan Business Council, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Christensen accused President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of using the referendum to "change Taiwan's name" and "risk the security interests of the Taiwan people for short term political gain."

Perhaps Christensen could have been asked to suggest which political party in the democratic world does not attempt to influence public opinion to further its ambitions. The Republicans certainly did so when it made the case for the invasion of Iraq.

What the US is afraid of is the Taiwanese electorate making a statement that Beijing -- and KMT hardliners for that matter -- doesn't want to hear.

It is hard to know what Washington expects from a country that has been unshackled from five decades of authoritarian rule. Surely this would not include a free and democratic people staying silent indefinitely and thus inviting a repressive state to interfere with and ultimately dominate them?

Even now it is not clear if US strategists are banking on economic reform leading to democratic reform in China and a peaceful settlement in the Taiwan Strait. But even if this is the case, it is not going to happen anytime soon. Hard-headed officials must therefore understand that Taiwan's status cannot remain in limbo indefinitely if China issues threats every few months and continues to pack its coastline with ordnance.

Taiwanese are not stupid; indeed, they are reliably pragmatic. Poll after poll has shown that the overwhelming majority are not interested in making dramatic ideological gambits in the cause of independence or unification.

So, if Washington believes that this thing called "democracy" has value outside the US, then it should show respect to Taiwanese by desisting with patronizing language and partisan doomsaying. Voters of goodwill are putting up with enough cynical, anti-democratic behavior from the KMT without having to factor in muddle-headed warnings from Washington.

What the gods have in store


Friday, Jan 04, 2008, Page 8

A few days ago, DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) warned that those planning to vote for KMT candidates in the upcoming elections will receive no recompense from the gods.

To a foreign observer, this may be nothing more than a tactic intended to scare the idol-worshipping populace, which constitutes not a small portion of voters in Taiwan, away from voting for opposition candidates and especially in the context of vote-buying.

But a moment's reflection reveals a psychological context that has more significance than mere campaign tactics would suggest.

To Hsieh and many DPP intellectuals and freedom-fighters, the struggle for democracy in the last 30 or more years has been long and hard, paid with many precious lives and untold woe -- certainly a tradition not to be bartered away for a mere sum of money.

To sell a ballot for money -- an obscene tradition established long ago by the KMT regime -- in a supposedly enlightened state, would mean again immolating freedom-lover Cheng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), again murdering Professor Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), again executing or incarcerating the victims of the White Terror and again molesting the victims of the 228 Incident.

These were atrocities committed against the people of Taiwan -- but the KMT would like us to forgive and forget.

Forgive we can, but forget we cannot, even though the KMT would like to think that we are, by our very nature, forgetful.

They seem to think -- rightly and regrettably so to a great extent -- that we love money, and that for a bottle of soy sauce or a small sum of money we would enslave ourselves and our children.

This explains the use of the millions of dollars that the KMT legislative candidates are getting from their party, a fact even the KMT spokesman dared not deny on camera.

This explains why KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), arch-enemy of Taiwan's democratic movement, posed with a cocky grin and assured reporters on camera that he would raise the national flag in front of the Presidential Office before Jan. 1, 2009, even after he had just shamelessly exhibited his shiftiness on the voting process and on the referendums.

Vote-buying in Taiwan is rampant but conducted in a secretive manner. It is sometimes communicated through passwords. Local gangsters and thugs are usually the enforcers. Under the circumstances, grassroots voters often capitulate and take the money.

Willingly or unwillingly, however, selling one's ballot is an act that compromises Taiwan's future.

The most severe act that the gods can inflict on Taiwan is none other than sharing the lot of Hong Kong -- or perhaps making us routinely trample on our forebears who died for us, an act KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) does daily to his uncle, who was murdered in cold blood by Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) soldiers.

Yang Chunhui
Salt Lake City, Utah