Word: sichuan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...someone who may have been responsible for recent security breaches at the Pentagon. "Will the FBI send special agents out to arrest me?" he asks. Much as they might want to talk with him, though, FBI agents don't have jurisdiction in Chengdu, the capital of China's Sichuan province, where Tan lives. And given that he has been lauded in China's official press for his triumphs in military-sponsored hacking competitions, Tan is unlikely to have problems with local law enforcement. But Tan and his seven companions, who make up the self-proclaimed Network Crack Program Hacker (NCPH...
...what does the NCPH, which Tan founded in 2004 when he was a student at Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, actually do? The answer starts out vague, but eventually pride gets the better of the young men. They acknowledge that the group first got its reputation by hacking 40% of the hacker associations' websites in China. That was during their "young and hotheaded college days," as Fisherman puts it. The NCPH is also famous for the remote-network-control programs they wrote and offered for download. These programs, which allow hackers to take over other computers, are exactly...
...successful graduate of this system. He earned $4,000 in prize money from hacker competitions, enough to make him worthy of a glowing profile in Sichuan University's campus newspaper. Tan told the paper that he was at his happiest "when he succeeds in gaining control of a server" and described a highly organized selection and training process that aspiring cybermilitiamen (no cyberwomen, apparently) undertake. The story details the links between the hackers and the military. "On July 25, 2005," it said, "Sichuan Military Command Communication Department located [Tan] through personal information published online and instructed him to participate...
With the help of experts from Sichuan University, the story continued, Tan's team won the competition and then had a month of intense training organized by the provincial military command, simulating attacks, designing hacking tools and drafting network-infiltration strategies. Tan was then chosen to represent the Sichuan Military Command in competition with other provinces. His team won again, after which, the iDefense reports say, he founded the NCPH and acquired an unidentified benefactor ("most likely the PLA") to subsidize the group's activities to the tune of $271 a month...
...when other reefs are removed in the coming months, they will be able to transport even more. The knock-on effects of the China trade are big, too. A giant casino opened last year to cater to the Chinese tourists pouring from Mekong ferries into northern Thailand, and Sichuan restaurants crowd the Chiang Saen riverside. At local institutes, Mandarin classes have become as popular as English ones. "If you want to be successful in business here, you need to learn Mandarin," says Sittichai, a school director. So frenzied is the China trade that the Chiang Saen government is building...