APT1, Shanghai Jiao Tong university, and Xenophobia

A few things have caught my attention recently which I'd like to share with you all in a somewhat abbreviated manner (meaning I'm swamped but this is important):

A Security Engineer's Forensic Review of Mandiant's APT1 report

Please read this security engineer's forensic review of the evidence contained in Mandiant's Appendix. He's discovered a lot more evidence which casts doubt on Mandiant's conclusions.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Collaboration with U.S. InfoSec Companies

Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Information Security Engineering is just that - one of many Chinese universities that teaches information security. It is not a PLA school nor does it engage in hacking attacks. If it did, then I doubt that BreakingPoint Systems, a company that conducts "cyber warrior training" and does "cyber range deployments" for the U.S. government would have signed a "strategic cooperation agreement" with them.

Mandiant CSO Richard Bejtlich's view on Hiring Foreign Nationals

While I've disagreed often with Mandiant and Richard Bejtlich's views on China, I never heard him say anything remotely as awful as this quote from the Washington Examiner. I hope he was misquoted:

Bejtlich said he opposed placement of any foreign citizen of a suspect country like China in any sensitive government position.
"If you're considering them for a job at a national lab or a government agency, I think we're at the point now where it's recognized that's probably not a good idea," he said.

If that's an accurate quote, I can only hope that U.S. companies will ignore that incredibly poor advice. I think that most intelligent people in today's globalized economy have experienced working side by side with honest, talented, and skillful "foreigners" in many high technology settings including national labs and other environments. In fact, the U.S. would be hard-pressed to continue to innovate without them. The above quote is an example of xenophobia that's not far removed from McCarthyism and other witch-hunts and it has no place in the U.S. in 2013.

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