April 13, 2014, the day China was made safer… from airsoft guns and swords to be sold to tourists.

Sounds ridiculous, right?

However, reading reports, both from Chinese and international media, one gets the impression that a) China has a huge gun problem, b) Chinese police are awesome, and/or, perhaps most importantly, c) THIS IS A BIG DEAL.

I submit for your consideration:

1. Reuters (emphasis mine):

China has seized more than 10,000 illegal guns in the southwestern province of Guizhou, state television reported on Sunday, marking its largest haul of illegal firearms as it steps up efforts to crack down on violent crime.

Gun attacks are rare in China but the government has stepped up efforts against violent crime following a spate of incidents, including a knife attack at a station in Kunming city in March blamed on militants from the western region of Xinjiang.

2. Daily Mail:

CAPTION:

Sniper rifles: The massive seizure, in the southwestern province of Guizhou, includes 10,500 illegal guns and 120,000 forbidden knives - all destined for the country’s flourishing underground arms trade

3. China Daily:

Yang Tao, an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Guiyang Public Security Bureau, said the guns, pistols and rifles were made of iron and used steel balls as bullets.

The firing range of the pistols is 30 to 50 meters, he said.

Fired from a great distance, the guns could cause permanent disability, he said, and at close range they could be lethal, he added.

Yang said the firing range of rifles could exceed 200 meters.

After a cursory search, a few inconsistencies arise. First, the investigation into and seizure of these weapons is somehow connected to the train station attack in Kunming on March 1. However, the investigation, including “deep undercover work,” actually started in January.

Second, just how dangerous are these weapons? Judging from the description, these guns are modified versions of either a BB gun or an airsoft rifle, the more likely candidate. (BB guns use metal balls, but are spring loaded, severely limiting range.) If they are airsoft, then they are highly modified. The guns with the longest range sold online are “sniper rifles” with a maximum range of 250 feet. That’s only 76 meters. And as one airsoft enthusiast advises: “Do not expect to hit a stationary, man-sized target more than 30% of the time at 100m if your gun is able to even reach that mark.”

Yes, airsoft and BB guns can put an eye out if you’re not careful, but disabling shots from 200 meters?  That seems a little bit too much to ask from an air-powered gun.

It seems that, in this case, the real losers are not criminals looking for some real firepower, but the airsoft markets around the world who will be losing out on a pretty big shipment. Rather than big busts that make the Chinese cops look like they’re doing their job, maybe what the people need is a short course on how to tell a real gun from “not a toy.”

Follow John Artman on Twitter @KnowsNothing

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Ace (Amy’s roommate!) speaks to John Artman and Amy Daml about teaching young children in China, culture shock after arriving from Boulder, Colorado in 2009 — her first time out of the country — and other…unique experiences in Beijing. 

Download Episode 11 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

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Badr Benjelloun — Beijing Daze curator, IT captain at True Run media, ESL forum operator, former Tangshan teacher, capoeira practitioner, guy who does business on the side, cook, and owner of the best rum bar / Moroccon eatery in Beijing, Cu Ju – is… um… sorry, we lost our train of thought. Badr does a lot around Beijing. We’re very happy he’s here.

John Artman and Amy Daml sit with Badr over whiskey (and rum, of course) to talk about his many projects, including dazeFEAST, Middle Eastern cuisine, what it was like to run a Chinese-language boot camp, and football/soccer (he’s an FC Barcelona fan, but missed the Barca trivia question: “Barcelona is the only European club to have done what since 1955?”).

p.s. Go to Cu Ju on Fridays for 10 kuai rums.

Download Episode 9 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes. Chad Lager, somehow, gets mentioned again.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

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The “emergence” of punk, in 2008, was a social interest story, as international media arrived in Beijing for Olympics coverage but “discovered” Chinese rock.

It’s different now, as Nevin Domer, COO of Maybe Mars and founder of Genjing Records, explains in our latest episode of The Creamcast.

“In the past couple of years, you’re getting proper music magazines, blogs, other taste-makers from abroad that are looking down not just at, Oh wow, China has rock music, China has punk music, whatever, but they’re actually looking at the quality of the bands, writing about music itself, writing about the musicians,” he says.

Listen as Domer talks to John Artman and Amy Daml about punk rock, his former bands, the early days of D-22, and why Michael Pettis decided to found Club XP.

Download Episode 8 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

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Long-time Beijinger and The Local owner Kenn Bermel enlightens hosts John Artman and Amy Daml on why his bar is no longer called Brussels, how he survived SARS locked into his dorm (people had a lot of sex), and what exactly propelled Brussels The Local to an improbable 2nd-place finish in last year’s the Beijinger Burger Cup (including a shocking – shocking — victory over Blue Frog).

Also, Kenn had this to say about his handicapped bartender from Minnesota:

“He’s definitely going to listen to this podcast, because he is stated his plan to discredit me. I’m serious. He wants to besmirch my name.

“Besmirch was my word, discredit was his.”

Also, Chad Lager’s name comes up again.

Download Episode 7 of The Creamcast, i.e. Unfettered Sex in the Time of SARS, here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

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Candice Lee is leaving China, and that doesn’t seem fair for those of us who can’t imagine a Beijing without her — including the bowling league, the annual kickball tournament, those random nights at 4corners or Great Leap Brewing when she would be merrily blitzed from a boozy dinner and talk about things no one would remember the day after.

If there was an Expat Hall of Fame, C-Dice would be a first-ballot entry. Over her seven years here, she has accumulated friends and acquaintances — and stories — from every social circle, from Ultimate Frisbee to business to journalism. If you’re an Olympic-wave expat (arrived 2006-08) in Beijing and find that you’re separated by more than one degree from C-Dice, you’re doing something wrong.

What we could say is that Candice Lee represents millennial expatriate fun in its purest form, and might just be the linchpin of our presently fading era of easy jobs, friendly faces, cheap rent, and discoveries around every bend. That’s probably overstating it though. In the end, we all just wish we could have a China experience like hers — before we grow up, buy business casual slacks, and leave this place.

This episode marks the debut of our new host, Amy Daml. Lee talks about her projects, a planned cross-country sidecar trip, being an Asian American in China, and making out at bars. Also, co-host John Artman tells his famous snail joke.

Download Episode 6 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie. This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

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Here’s the thing about teaching English in China: it’s a way in. “The people who come for the experience, I feel, are the most valuable people you can have in a place like Beijing because they’re learning about themselves, and you never know what somebody might be able to do until they arrive in a place like this,” says Matt Jones, an English teacher who’s using his years of experience — teaching “communication” and “culture” as much as anything else, as he puts it — to start his own school. “If the ticket is English teaching, why not use that ticket?”

He shares more insights with John Artman and The Good Doctor on this episode of The Creamcast. Making an appearance in the conversation is the famous Chad Lager (recently departed, alas), who used to share an apartment with Jones. Who learned from whom, business-wise?

Download Episode 5 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie. This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing and The Good Doctor @doctorentropy2. You may also be interested in Doc’s current Kickstarter, Quitting the Grave.

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Lottie Dowling is single. How this is, we may never know, considering this Kiwi is smart, cute, and funny, as evidenced by her co-founding of Improv Beijing, the original improv group in China. Here she is:

Guys: go date this girl. You can tweet at her, but only if you promise not to be creepy.

Get to know her better in this latest episode of our podcast, hosted by the remarkably-bad-at-improv duo of John Artman and The Good Doctor.

Download Episode 4 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie. This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing and The Good Doctor @doctorentropy2. You may also be interested in Doc’s current Kickstarter, Quitting the Grave.

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Amy Daml of Coon Creek, Minnesota has had a productive first year in China, braving TCM, Chinese grannies, and sex scenes in movies (alas, just as a voice actress, with her sexy, sexy voice). Listen to her charm the pants off our hosts, John Artman and The Good Doctor, in the latest episode of The Creamcast.

You can also catch Daml (pronounced Dam-ol) on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe (Mon-Fri, 8-10 pm).

Download Episode 3 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie.” Image by Katie.  This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing and The Good Doctor @doctorentropy2. You may also be interested in Doc’s current Kickstarter, Quitting the Grave.

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Sam Goodman is a Beijing oldie, having first moved here in 1995. In 1997 he was among the first foreigners to open a shop in the food-and-beverage industry, the sandwich chain Sammie’s. He has since written a book, Where East Eats West, and gone on to start an assortment of projects, which you can read about here.

Join hosts John Artman and The Good Doctor as they talk to Goodman about his ventures and adventures, including the time in Thailand he watched a fellow rock climber almost die after plummeting 55 meters.

Download Episode 2 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s “Demain je change de vie.” Image by Katie. This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing and The Good Doctor @doctorentropy2. You may also be interested in Doc’s current Kickstarter, Quitting the Grave.

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We’re launching a podcast! On the occassion of Episode 1, featuring Frank Yu, The Creamcast hosts John Artman and The Good Doctor are here to answer some questions.

What is a podcast?

Doc: Podcasts are the future. Not in the way 3D movies are the future of Hollywood, but in the way Apple TV is the future of television. No one enjoys being forced to watch Star Trek: The Wrath of Sherlock in crappy stereoscopic vision, but everyone likes getting their entertainment on demand, consuming it whenever and wherever you want, on whatever device you have at hand.

Can you masturbate while listening to one?

John: There’s a fine line between being honest and giving too much information. Suffice it to say that, yes, you can masturbate listening to a podcast. However, it is my personal belief that while stimulating yourself physically, it can be quite distracting, and psychologically challenging, to also attempt aural stimulation.

But… I mean… Creamcast.

Doc: The Creamcast, Beijing Cream’s new podcast, has the potential to be that friend you’ve always wanted but never had the courage to go talk to. Or maybe it will be the intrusive third wheel in the threesome you hoped to avoid. Either way, it’s an experience you’ll never forget. Hosted by John Artman and myself, the Creamcast is a conversational podcast in the tradition of The Nerdist or WTF. Each week a guest with intimate knowledge of expat life in Beijing comes on to make confessions and create scandal. It’s like porn, but for your ears.

John: We would love for you to share with us, either in the comments section or via email, any and all experiences you have with using our voices to pleasure yourself.

Tell me more. 

Doc: The best way to listen to podcasts is through iTunes. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can use the Podcast app. Otherwise, you can find the podcasts tab in the iTunes store. Don’t worry, pretty much every podcast is free, and paid for by Audible or Stamps.com. With either method, you can search for specific podcasts or scroll through the most popular. It’s easy to subscribe to the ones you like, and then your phone or computer will automatically download the latest episode as soon as it’s posted. It couldn’t be easier.

John: If you don’t do Apple, Android offers podcast apps such as OneCast or Podkicker. I’ve never actually seen a Windows phone, but I’m guessing they offer a podcast app as well, though it will probably come with plenty of pop-up spam. Once you have the app installed, you’ll be able to search for Creamcast and subscribe to it much the same as in iTunes.

Doc, I know you like dinosaurs. Perhaps you’d like to talk about dinosaurs?

Doc: Alternatively, every podcast must be hosted somewhere on the web apart from Apple servers. So if you want to listen to Creamcast and you don’t have any kind of subscription service, you can go straight to Beijing Cream or SoundCloud and download it to your computer or phone. You can even listen to it online, but that’s a little like hunting dinosaurs with a technology that’s much older than dinosaurs — say, something that would have been used to hunt trilobites.

Who’s this John Artman fellow, and why does he sound familiar? 

John: You might remember me from such podcasts as Artman Talks and China Punks. If not, then you definitely don’t remember my work at China Radio International for China Drive (91.5 FM) or Today on Beyond Beijing (846 FM). I’ve also written some amazingly forgettable technology posts for Beijing Cream, such as Huawei makes phones for Giants and Mandiant is Stoopid.

Fantastic. Who’s the first guest?

Doc: We sit down with Frank Yu of Kwestr and chat about getting into fights, dealing with model girlfriends, and why Beijing is better than Shanghai. Also, things get testy when Frank fails his trivia quiz at the end.

Our episode with Frank is embedded below, and can be downloaded here. (We’re working on getting it on iTunes. UPDATE: On iTunes!) Be sure to check out The Creamcast every Friday afternoon henceforth. (Logo credit: Katie.)

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Part of the theme song was from Löhstana David’s “Demain je change de vie.” This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

[Disclaimer: This post was supposed to be about my general experience with the medicine banlan'gen. However, I just finished a course on traditional Chinese medicine and couldn't help presenting the results of some quick research.]

It really is amazing what people believe: A few years ago, everyone started eating eggplant after a quack TCM doctor said it was the new panacea; after the Fukushima meltdown, iodized salt was sold out as people rushed to prevent radiation poisoning, never realizing that iodized salt contains such miniscule amounts of iodine that you would first die before getting enough into your system; and now, after several provincial health authorities recommended it to prevent H7N9 infections, people are rushing to buy the traditional Chinese medical remedy for colds and flus, ban lan gen (板蓝根, sometimes rendered as banlan’gen).

While the World Health Organization has been quite positive about the Chinese government’s response to the outbreak of the newest avian flu, the Chinese people themselves remain skeptical. Certainly when officials recommend a treatment with no scientific backing, we really do have to question whether these people know what they’re talking about.

Ban lan gen has been around for quite a long time. The first recorded mention of it comes from the Huangdi Neijing 黄帝内经, written sometime between the late Warring States Period (475-221 BCE) and the early Han Dynasty 206 BCE – 220 CE), where the author(s) recommend it as an anti-viral and anti-bacterial treatment:

It can prevent disease when there is none. When there is disease it can treat it… It eliminates toxins from the body, boosts the immune system, fights bacterial and viral infections, and balances yin and yang… It clears heat, but does not damage the Spleen and Stomach.

However, as you can quite imagine, germ theory did not exist at this time. When they say “bacterial” and “viral,” they really mean something very different. It wasn’t until Mao Zedong declared that Chinese and Western should be integrated that physicians began to prescribe ban lan gen for colds and flus.

In the vocabulary of Chinese medicine, most types of colds and flus are usually caused by Wind entering the body. Amazingly enough, in pre-modern TCM, it is recommended that people NOT take ban lan gen for Wind-type “pathogens,” as it might actually worsen the condition.

In and of itself, ban lan gen, of all Chinese medicines I’ve tried, has to be the easiest to drink. Most commonly sold as a pellet/powder, it dissolves easily in hot water and tastes almost sweet. Current Chinese wisdom says that you should take it as soon as you start experiencing cold or flu symptoms, as it’s best as a preventative measure. Much of this can be explained by its marketing as an anti-viral and anti-bacterial treatment, since actual TCM doctors will not recommend this for their patients suffering from a cold or flu. (It is good for, however, for sore throats, as it can help clear “heat,” i.e., inflammation and infection.)

Given all this, it’s completely stupid and irresponsible for health authorities to recommend this nostrum, and even TCM says you shouldn’t take it for ANY flu, much less in the case of a swine or avian pandemic.

John Artman has been China watching and covering tech since 2010. Follow him @KnowsNothing.

I ran across this piece on a blog for the Heritage Foundation in which the author tries to connect the recent accusations from Mandiant about hacking from China (still without conclusive evidence) and TOM¹-Skype’s censoring:

Chinese hackers have infiltrated the popular Internet messaging service Skype. The hackers have modified the operation of Skype so that the Skype programs on Chinese computers all have keyword systems to identify when the citizens use forbidden words, according to Jeffrey Knockel, a computer science researcher at the University of New Mexico.

…This is not the first instance of Chinese hacking. Just two weeks ago, Mandiant (an American cybersecurity company) reported that a unit of the Chinese army had been responsible for hacking more than 140 Western companies.

This ridiculous connection comes from a very interesting Business Week article that chronicles how a graduate student at the University of New Mexico cracked the encryption used by TOM-Skype and subsequently compiled a list of sensitive terms. He also lists some scary things that the service does:

The surveillance feature in TOM-Skype conducts the monitoring directly on a user’s computer, scanning messages for specific words and phrases, Knockel says. When the program finds a match, it sends a copy of the offending missive to a TOM-Skype computer server, along with the account’s username, time and date of transmission, and whether the message was sent or received by the user, his research shows. Whether that information is then shared with the Chinese government wasn’t explored by Knockel — and couldn’t be learned from TOM-Skype.

But this is nothing new. In 2008, activists at Citizen Lab disclosed a similar finding: that TOM, in a joint venture with the then-owner of Skype, eBay, systematically monitors and censors users’ communication. Then, as in 2006, Skype publicly commented that they knew about it, promised that it was only instant messages that were affected, and reassured everyone that Skype-to-Skype (as in, not TOM-Skype) communication was fully encrypted and protected.

This go-around is a bit different: Skype’s parent company, Microsoft, has made no substantive comment, only saying that to operate in China they must follow local laws, i.e. monitor and censor users to their best ability:

Microsoft’s statement also said that “in China, the Skype software is made available through a joint venture with TOM Online. As majority partner in the joint venture, TOM has established procedures to meet its obligations under local laws.”

As Brendan O’Kane points out, with such a huge a market as China, we can expect that tech companies will do whatever they must to appease local law enforcement to ensure continued access. Unfortunately, this logic cannot be confined only to China.

Last year, Microsoft began re-engineering its supernodes (servers that help make the initial peer-to-peer connection between users) to facilitate government monitoring of phone calls. According to Tim Verry at ExtremeTech, this allows the supernodes to actually route the voice data:

In this way, the actual voice data would pass through the monitored servers and the call is no longer secure. It is essentially a man-in-the-middle attack, and it is made all the easier because Microsoft -– who owns Skype and knows the keys used for the service’s encryption -– is helping.

[It] is a bit disconcerting that it is possible to violate your privacy, especially when you aren’t doing anything to warrant such potential invasions.

And even in January of this year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, and other activist groups released an open letter asking Microsoft to disclose whether or not it is possible for law enforcement to eavesdrop on Skype users. Microsoft, just as now in China, is suspiciously reticent.

The moral of this story? If you live in China, under no circumstances download or use the TOM version of Skype. In fact, given the evidence, it doesn’t matter where you live, don’t use Skype at all if you are concerned about maintaining your privacy. There are other options.

¹ TOM-Skype is a joint venture between the TOM Group, based in Hong Kong, and Skype to make Skype services available to people in mainland China. They report that by the end of 2011, TOM-Skype had 80 million registered users.

John Artman has been China watching and covering tech since 2010. Follow him @KnowsNothing.

Before Spring Festival, we warned Beijing Cream readers about some of the dangers of using Android, how a specific type of malware works, and what users can do to protect themselves. As mentioned in that post, it’s not just Android users who should beware, but also those using the iOS platform in its many physical expressions, especially those with jailbroken devices.

iOS can, too

Because of the open nature of the Android platform, users can easily and unknowingly download applications repackaged to carry various kinds of malware. With Apple’s mobile operating system, and the amount of control built into the OS, applications, and hardware itself, the chance of downloading malware capable of hijacking your connection or retrieving personal information is quite slim. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

According to Apple (PDF), they don’t need any built-in or third party antivirus software, as the complete ecosystem is built around control. Even if malware passed the vetting process, including certificates only given to verified developers, to get onto the App Store, they are then “sandboxed” so that they don’t have access to any other parts of the system. That being said, that doesn’t mean that malware is not created for iOS, nor is it impossible for applications to carry malware through the App Store and onto your device.

F-Secure Q4 2012 Mobile Threat Report (PDF) shows that Android accounts for 79% of all mobile malware, whereas iOS accounts for only 0.7%. Yes, a small number, but as Philip Elmer-Dewitt points out, 2012 was is the first year that any threats on iOS were discovered by F-Secure.

Tony DeLaGrange, from Secure Ideas, says that there have already been apps approved by Apple that had hidden and undocumented functionality. Luckily, they weren’t carrying malicious code:

For instance, the iRandomizer Numbers and Handy Light apps had a hidden undocumented feature that provided free tethering. I wouldn’t categorize this a malware, but the point is that if someone is able to hide functionality within an app and get through Apple’s review process, then a malicious app getting through this process could potentially reach a large volume of devices before being identified and removed, especially if the malware delays its malicious actions to allow time for further distribution.

He adds that it would difficult to pull off, as the app would need to be quite popular and regularly used, but the payoff would be that much more rewarding.

Jailbroken Nation

As with Macs, there is a veneer of security for iOS, as just not much malware is created for the platform. However, as we mentioned above and as Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky believes, this has more to do with other platforms being more easily targeted than the inherent security of iOS.

When users jailbreak their device, they also disable some key security measures. As Tony DeLaGrange puts it, this can be dangerous, as more and more of our lives are stored on our mobile devices, including credit card information, passwords, and social security numbers (emphasis mine):

Jailbreaking an iOS device basically disables code signing, which disables Apple’s Data Execution Prevention (DEP) control. Once DEP is disabled, pretty much any code can be executed on the jailbroken device. Consequently, jailbroken iOS apps are not sandboxed, which permits easier access to any data on the device, as well as device features. Removing these controls opens up the iOS device to malware infestation and potential compromise of their information.

While the number of jailbroken devices in China seems to be going down, it already presents itself as a target-rich environment. On top of that, it is amazingly easy to find jailbreak solutions online and offline, with stores actually advertising jailbreaking services. Easy things tend to attract people without the knowhow or savvy, thus making for easier targets as the Ike virus from 2011 shows.

Ike.A relied on the fact that many who jailbreak really don’t understand how their device works and used the default iOS credentials and SSH to infect the jailbroken iPhone and (harmlessly) Rick-Roll the user by changing the background to Rick Astley. According to DeLaGrange, Ike.B, however, was not as friendly. Using the same vulnerabilities, it created command and control that made the iPhone part of a botnet that was suspected of engaging in phishing of ING user login credentials.

Sometimes the Rules Feel Good

While there are certain advantages to jailbreaking, the downsides can be quite severe. And, to be honest, the non-practical advantages of jailbreaking only really count if you want to tweak the system and know what you’re doing

I came round to not jailbreaking my device after I found that I couldn’t (a long story). At first, I was very wary of actually purchasing applications, especially games. But after that first purchase, I have to admit that it feels good to know that I’m helping to support developers who make interesting content. Also, I now no longer have to worry about strange ways around Apple controls when upgrading: every single application on my iPad will follow me version after version with no work on my part.

I’m never going to stop being a cheap person (well, usually), so that’s why I have apps like TouchArcade and AppsGoneFree that alert me to great games and applications that have either become free or have been reduced in price.

My advice to all of our readers: Don’t jailbreak; it’ll only put you at more risk. Even if you’re not jailbroken, still be careful about what you’re putting on your device, put a password on the lock screen, and make sure “Find my iDevice” is turned on.

And never, never, never leave your device (whatever platform, make, or model) on the table at Starbucks while you go to the bathroom. It probably won’t be there when you come back.

John Artman has been China watching and covering tech since 2010. Follow him @KnowsNothing.

Groupthink is an amazing thing. The publicity surrounding attacks on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Facebook, Apple, et al. proves nothing except the saw about propaganda: if you say something often enough, it becomes truth.

A quick scan through English-language China news reveals that on the basis of one report, it is now indisputable fact that a Chinese military organization was responsible for the above-mentioned attacks. So far, the only substantive criticism of Mandiant’s report has come from Jeffrey Carr, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Taia Global, who says the report has “critical analytic flaws.”

In summary, my problem with this report is not that I don’t believe that China engages in massive amounts of cyber espionage. I know that they do – especially when an executive that we worked with traveled to Beijing to meet with government officials with a clean laptop and came back with one that had been breached while he was asleep in his hotel room.

My problem is that Mandiant refuses to consider what everyone that I know in the Intelligence Community acknowledges – that there are multiple states engaging in this activity; not just China. And that if you’re going to make a claim for attribution, then you must be both fair and thorough in your analysis and, through the application of a scientific method like ACH, rule out competing hypotheses and then use estimative language in your finding. Mandiant simply did not succeed in proving that Unit 61398 is their designated APT1 aka Comment Crew.

And that about sums it up. With so many other actors out there, any attribution that does not conclusively exclude them (Russia, Israel, France, and others) should be taken with many grains of salt. Mandiant has made minimal effort to rule out other possibilities, demonstrating the type of confirmation bias that a wary and responsible press would do well to question.

On top of that, the New York Times even admits that while the email accounts of David Barboza (Shanghai bureau chief) and Jim Yardley (former Beijing bureau chief, now South Asia bureau chief) were compromised, no documents pertaining to the Wen Jiabao story “were accessed, downloaded, or copied,” in the words of Jill Abramson, executive editor at the NYT.

“Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive e-mails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied.”

And the holes proliferate. Carr touches on several reasons why the NY Times’s claims — bolstered by Mandiant, which sees China as a “go-to culprit” (Carr’s words) — don’t stand up to critical analysis. Examples:

The Beijing Workday Argument. The hackers could have been from anywhere in the world. The timezone that Mandiant imagines as a Beijing workday could easily apply to a workday in Bangkok, Singapore, Taiwan, Tibet, Seoul, and even Tallinn – all of whom have active hacker populations.

The Lanxiang Vocational School Argument. The article mentioned that the hackers were traced back to the “same universities used by the Chinese military to attack U.S. military contractors in the past.” If memory serves, one of those was the Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province and home to a PLA regional command center. Actually, Jinan is an industrial city of six million people and more than a dozen universities. IP Geolocation to one school means absolutely nothing.

Furthermore, even if the Chinese government was involved in cyber espionage against the New York Times, it wouldn’t use its military for that. It would use its Ministry of State Security (China’s equivalent of the CIA). And they wouldn’t be stupid enough to run the attack from their own offices, which if you’re interested in checking IP addresses, is in Beijing – 274 miles from Jinan.

Again, this doesn’t mean that China is definitely not hacking. Rather, our perspective is skewed. Perhaps the question we should be asking isn’t “Who did it?” but rather “Who benefits?” So far, it appears to be US policymakers bent on beefing up cyber-security legislation using China as the go-to bogeyman. Naturally, lots of media have fallen in step, regurgitating a tired, not-at-all subtle narrative that we should know better than to accept at face value.

John Artman has been China-watching and covering tech since 2010. Follow him @KnowsNothing.