PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

[RamaY]

The dlones are back. Now I am confident that China economy is bouncing back. They are paying the 50cent-ers.

[Suraj]

12 of world's largest ports are located in China
source: http://www.portofrotterdam.com/SiteColl ... _ports.pdf

In other words, your export model is based around pushing out ridiculous volumes of cheap junk, and is phenomenally resource intensive compared to others - you need to build and run that many ports, transport lines, and back end supply chains. The other top exporters (US, Germany, Japan) barely have a presence on that list, yet they generate export value not much less than PRC. Even India generates $300B+ exports without probably a single port in the top 30.

Congratulations on the resumption of 50c pay!

[ArmenT]

Yangtze River turns red around Chongquin

A stretch of China's Yangtze River has mysteriously turned red around the city of Chongquin. Officials are investigating the river's transformation, as nobody is quite sure what caused it. The river began turning the color of a nice marinara sauce on Thursday.

The Yangtze River is the longest in Asia and the third-longest in the world. The affected area of the river -- reportedly turned "the color of tomato juice" is generally in the vicinity of the industrial city of Chongquin, although red sections of the river have been reported elsewhere, as well.

Stay safe y'all.

[Theo_Fidel]

That metric on the ports is a gross tonnage measure. This is a meaningless statistic. Typical drone...

BTW welcome back. Always enjoyed beating 'em up.
--------------------------------

BTW here is the Red river..


Meanwhile some 30 year world leading Chinese...

[zlin]

The redness of Yangtse river was casued by the mud came from upstream Yunnan province, where red clay (laterite, terra rossa) is dominant. The consistant heavy rains and mud slides bring huge amount of red clay mud to the rivers this year.

Typical red clay terrain in Yunnan province


Of course, most famous red clay is the court of French Open

[krishnan]

[zlin]

Microsoft Invests In China R&D, Eyes Mobile Uptake

Ralph Haupter, the company’s new CEO for Greater China, held a press conference Thursday to lay out the company’s ‘go big’ strategy, which includes over 1,000 new Chinese hires, more R&D spending (up 15% from $500m annually) and a beefed-up sales network across the world’s largest PC market. China is also seeing a boom in smartphones, which is where Microsoft has high hopes for Windows 8, its new-and-improved operating system.

[zlin]

China's Alibaba to pass Amazon, eBay in transaction value: executive

HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - China's largest e-commerce firm, Alibaba Group, expects to sell merchandise this year worth more than that sold by Amazon Inc and eBay combined, Alibaba's chief strategy officer said on Saturday.

The company is aiming for 3 trillion yuan ($473 billion) in annual transaction value from its Taobao e-commerce units in the next 5 to 7 years, Zeng Ming told reporters.

[Theo_Fidel]

Thanx Zlin,

That was quite a revealing detail.

So Yunnan province must be completely deforested and degraded to allow so much soil to wash into the river. Agriculture must be deeply affected. The poor peasants must be rioting. Look for protests in Yunan province this year.

[Don]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... ys-376166/

Chinese bidder, Hawker Beechcraft to sign purchase deal in a 'few days'

PrintBy: Stephen Trimble Wichita 01:18 6 Sep 2012 Source:

Hawker Beechcraft is within a "few days" of signing a $1.79 billion purchase agreement with Superior Aviation Beijing, but other bidders for the Kansas-based airframer could still emerge during a court-ordered public auction, says chairman Bill Boisture.

The purchase agreement "is going to happen in the next few days", Boisture said in an interview in his office on 5 September.

In fact, Boisture stopped the interview for about five minutes to take a phone call that he said could be the final agreement with Superior Aviation Beijing. After resuming the interview following the private call, Boisture did not elaborate on its contents, but confirmed the agreement will be signed within a "few days".

Hawker Beechcraft filed for bankruptcy in May and agreed to negotiate exclusively with Superior Aviation Beijing's bidders two months later. But the negotiations dragged on and the bankruptcy court agreed to extend the deadline to receive Hawker Beechcraft's restructuring plan until December.

If the purchase agreement with Superior Aviation Beijing is signed within the next few days, there is still no certainty that the Chinese aircraft parts supplier and light helicopter-maker will close the deal. The bid by Superior Aviation Beijing must survive two more hurdles.

First, the bankruptcy court will hold a public auction to receive additional bids despite the exclusivity agreement signed in July between Hawker Beechcraft and Superior Aviation Beijing.

"Why is there a public auction?" Boisture asks. "The bankruptcy court's responsibility is to achieve the highest possible value for the estate. You go out and look for alternative bids that exceed that amount and that's how the judge assures that he's got the highest value for all of the secured and unsecured creditors of the estate."

Other companies had expressed interest in acquiring Hawker Beechcraft before the agreement was announced with Superior Aviation Beijing. Potential suitors included Embraer and, reportedly, India's Mahindra Aerospace. The auction will give all interested parties another opportunity to close the deal.

"There could be another bidder," Boisture says.

Meanwhile, Hawker Beechcraft will also initiate a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) on the bid by Superior Aviation Beijing before the auction begins. "That's the only deal that we know about," Boisture explains.

Hawker Beechcraft will seek approval for a plan to segregate its defence products division, which includes sales and support of the T-6 trainer and the special mission variants of the King Air series.

The public auction and the CFIUS review will not be complete until the end of the year, Boisture says. It will then take a further six months to actually separate the commercial and defence divisions of Hawker Beechcraft, he adds.

The defence division will be owned, at least initially, by the primary lenders to Hawker Beechcraft - Centerbridge Partners; Angelo, Gordon & Co; Sankaty Advisors; and Capital Research & Management - Boisture says. But the division could be sold off or liquidated after it leaves Hawker Beechcraft's control.

"Like all other investment entities, at some point they will seek to monetise their investment," he say

[kit]

Nation Rich in Land Draws Workers From One Rich in People


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/busin ... ml?_r=1&hp

china s influence inside Russia

[zlin]

Is this true?

King Long buses that keep breaking down are not King Longs

We expose the biggest lie going around Mumbai

King Long buses that keep breaking down are not King Longs

The 285 buses on our roads are manufactured by Cerita Motors, a company in Mohali, Punjab


Posted On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 04:50:44 AM











King Long AC buses have for all these years been seen as a torture wreaked on the city by BEST. Today, Mumbai Mirror can reveal that the famously breakdown-prone buses are also a big lie inflicted on us.

Investigations carried out by this paper have revealed that King Long buses, sold to us as top-of-the-line Chinese import, are not King Long buses at all. The purple buses you see broken down every now and then have nothing, except a mechanical part here and there, to do with the Chinese bus maker Xiamen King Long United Automotive Co Ltd.

The rickety clunkers that have given the usually efficient BEST a bad name are Cerita buses put together by an Indian company JayCee Coach Builders Limited (JCBL) at Lalru, Mohali in Punjab.

Yet, for years Mumbai has been sold the lie of these haphazardly put-together vehicles with a ridiculously high incidence of breakdown - 4,037 in two-and-a-half years for 285 buses - boasting of a Chinese lineage.

And this lie has been perpetrated officially and systematically. BEST refers to these buses as King Longs on its official website. King Long also appears in its official correspondence, including RTI replies. For instance, in a recent response to a Mirror RTI application, BEST said its AC fleet comprised of Volvo, Ashok Leyland and King Long buses.

The misinformation campaign, in fact, started on December 15, 2007, the day these buses began plying on the Mumbai roads. At the inauguration ceremony held at Marine Drive, the then chief minister, late Vilasrao Deshmukh, and the then BEST general manager, Uttam Khobragade, referred to the buses as King Longs.

Interestingly, though the first bus carried the Cerita logo on its nose, it was not clearly visible because of the elaborate floral decoration. The media - both print and electronic - lapped up the Chinese connection and in those days, when Shanghai was Mumbai's aspiration, the lie suited everyone.

On Tuesday, BEST General Manager O P Gupta, who took over recently, admitted that the 285 buses known for their poor performance in his AC fleet are Cerita and not King Long. "Yes, these are Cerita buses and not King Long. Their warranty period has expired and we have taken a decision to not buy any of these buses ever again. In fact, when I took over I stopped delivery of 38 of these buses that still had to be acquired."

Xiamen King Long United Automotive Co Ltd., meanwhile, has been quite unnerved by all the bad press it has been getting in Mumbai for no fault its own.

In a detailed e-mail reply to Mumbai Mirror's queries, Sannis Wang, deputy general manager of King Long's Overseas After Sales Department, maintained that it had a limited contract to provide some bus parts to JCBL. This pact had nothing to do with JCBL's contract to supply AC buses to BEST.

Wang's mail stated the company has no idea why buses King Long has nothing to do with should get its name. He said King Long just provides some parts -- axle, I-beam frame and brake systems - to JCBL, like it does to many other bus manufactures across the globe.

Underlining his company's robust reliability record, Wang said King Long accounts for 25 per cent of all of China's bus exports and it saw sales of $ 280 million in 2011. King Long buses, he said, were used "at events such as Beijing Olympic Games, Singapore Youth Olympic Games, Shanghai Expo and London Olympic Games" and there were no malfunctions.

Numerous attempts to contact JCBL were futile with mails sent to the official addresses of Cerita Motors remaining unanswered. A mail sent to P S Sodhi, director, JCBL, didn't elicit an answer either. Calls on his cell phone went unanswered.

A company official who picked up the line in JCBL's corporate office in Chandigarh said that the company's managing director Rishi Aggarwal was abroad and could not be reached.

When contacted, Uttam Khobragade, who was BEST general manager when the airconditioned buses were launched in Mumbai, said it was too old a matter for him to remember the specifics. "It is a five-six year old matter (whether the bus was a King Long or a Cerita brand) so I wouldn't remember the specifics. All I know is that due process was followed to bring in these buses and under me these buses ran very well and greatly helped bring down pollution. Beyond this I wouldn't like to comment."

The Cerita logo on the bus that no one seems to have noticed

The real King Long Logo and buses

[vina]

Is this true?

King Long buses that keep breaking down are not King Longs

.
In fact, right in BRF we had a discussion about the Ding_Dong that Mumbai is getting (the entire deal reeked of corruption and madness), about how it made no sense at all, how it was a disaster in the making and the Chinese Ding-Dongs shouldn't be touched with a barge pole.

Now, whether the King-Longs assembled at Mohali are King Longs or "Cerita" . Well, ALL the Volvo Bus bodies are built by local builders such as Jaico and Azad , out of Volvo supplied chassis aggregates of course. Volvo sells them as name branded buses to everyone and are EXCELLENT . Same with Mercedes Benze and of course Tata and Ashok Leyland.

So are the Volvo buses built by Jaico, Volvo or Jaico ? How come the Jaico and other built multinational and Indian brands are ultra reliable, but the Chinese buses keep breaking down ?

This seems like a desperate attempt by the King Long fellows to wash their hands off a disastrous and substandard product. I am just waiting for the Chinese metro cars that the Bombay Metro have ordered to start falling apart and they will come running back to Bombardier and BEML and others being built right here in India.

[Singha]

there is a construction site next to my house. apart from most of the gantry cranes being Zoomlion (a china co), spotted a large size wheeled bulldozer named Liu Gong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiuGong) . earlier it would have been caterpillar, volvo or komatsu.

so make no mistake. the giant scale of chinese construction and mining activity has given rise to cos who can both supply the right equipment and manage the projects as well.
thats why parts of US bridges, cranes are now floated by ship from china.

whatever gaps are there they are improving and borrowing all the time.

[Gus]

it is not clear what is what - from the article

Cerita buses put together by an Indian company JayCee Coach Builders Limited (JCBL) at Lalru, Mohali in Punjab.

He said King Long just provides some parts -- axle, I-beam frame and brake systems - to JCBL, like it does to many other bus manufactures across the globe.

Appears that King Long provide "some parts". And I am sure JayCee COACH BUILDERS don't manufacture the remaining parts.

And there is no 'standard specs' for the remaining parts and TATA or AL parts won't fit. So I am sure they are not putting in TATA, AL parts.

I am guessing they are getting CKD/SKD and assembling it and putting a body on top.

Given the breakdown numbers, I don't think it comes from shabby body building alone - given that body building does not lead to breakdowns. Poor assembly might. And that is a failure of King Long if they provide all the parts but no expertise in assembly.

scratching my head here..past experience tells me of enthusiastic assemblers getting stuff from China and quality does not hold up.

[Christopher Sidor]

Is this true?

King Long buses that keep breaking down are not King Longs

.

This seems like a desperate attempt by the King Long fellows to wash their hands off a disastrous and substandard product. I am just waiting for the Chinese metro cars that the Bombay Metro have ordered to start falling apart and they will come running back to Bombardier and BEML and others being built right here in India.

Not only that, even the so called "India's first private metro", the Rapid Metro of Gurgaon is going to run on Chinese made trains. Let us see how long they last. And let us not forget the case of Chinese buses ordered by BEST Bombay, which fail to climb even the small fly-overs of Bombay.

[Austin]

And let us not forget the case of Chinese buses ordered by BEST Bombay, which fail to climb even the small fly-overs of Bombay.

Who said so ? If you mean those AS-4 buses then i have travelled in them for quite a few times on long routes and they do climb many bridges and flyovers here and they do it quite well.

Atleast the travel ride is far far better then those Askok leyland busses we have although the fares are atleast 5 times higher for AC busses

[Gus]

If you are going for a better bus than AL/TATA...go the whole hog and get the Volvo buses. They are good and Volvo is committed to India since it sold trucks in 90s. Chennai and Bangalore runs Volvo AC buses in local commute routes and private mofussil operators run quite a few Volvo multiaxle buses.

[Austin]

Well BEST must have gone the L1 bidding route and these Chinese buses may have bid the lowest and met their criteria , Volvo or Merc buses must be better comfort and ride but could be expensive too.

More ever BEST is a public transport service and you cant compare depth and range of BEST service with Chennai and Bangalore , more ever these AC buses cater to the affordable section of society who can shelve 50 bucks for a ride majority of the buses are still AL types and they are fine but getting old.

[gunjur]

China's Expanding Role in Global Mergers & Acquisitions

[Gus]

City Volvo buses in Chn and Blr are operated by corporation onlee. There are quite a few in the IT corridor/OMR.

[zlin]

Largest hydropower station on Mekong River starts operation

PU'ER -- The largest hydropower station on Lancang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province -- known as the Mekong River in southeast Asia -- went into operation Thursday with its first power generating unit up and running.

The Nuozhadu hydroelectric station, located in the city of Pu'er, is China's 4th largest of its kind. It will be installed with nine same-size generating units with a total capacity of 5.85 gigawatts.

All the units will be put into operation by 2014, thus enabling the station to generate 23.9 billion kwh of electricity on average each year.

By churning out clean energy, the station will help save 9.6 million tonnes of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 18.8 million tonnes each year.

The dam of the Nuozhadu station is 261.5 meters high, the highest in Asia and the world's third highest.

As one of the seven planned hydropower projects on Lancang River inside China, the station will increase the electricity supply and optimize the energy mix and also help flood control and water use downstream, said Yunnan governor Li Jiheng.

The Lancang River, or Mekong River, rises on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before spilling into the South China Sea.

The river's China section has an estimated 32 gigawatts of exploitable water power resources as it flows through high mountains and valleys, with a huge drop in height at some points.

During the hydropower development, China has paid great attention to the protection of the river valley ecosystem and environment as well as water allocation along the river valley.

In recent years, many contractors and research institutes have conducted investigations with overseas counterparts on the impacts of hydropower development on downstream regions.

The research results showed that the water flow in the river's China section accounted for only 13.5 percent of the river's total, making the country's hydropower development have little impact downstream.

"First, the water flow inside China has a small share of the whole river valley; Secondly, hydropower generation doesn't consume water," said Ma Hongqi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. "So the hydropower development on the upper reaches has very limited impact on the water flow downstream."

Meanwhile, the dam stores water during the flood season and releases it during the dry season, which could help ease both flooding and drought in the countries downstream, Ma said.

Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower Co Ltd, which runs the hydropower station, has also made efforts to protect the ecosystem and the fish in the river.

Wang Yongxiang, chairman of Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower, said the company has set up botanical gardens of rare plants and animal saving stations and also has taken measures to ensure zero emissions at the hydropower project.

[vina]

well the faithfool could always target company owned properties in the IT, finance and manufacturing space like GE or GM. but that will generally bring down the police danda hard on their backsides

That is the "model" of the PRC Faithfools. You need govt and police support to do such a thing. Yawn.. Chinese Faithfools burn up a Panasonic plant and a Toyota dealership.


Panasonic plant on fire as anti japan protests escalate

Panasonic, Toyota Report Damages in China as Protests Widen
By Bloomberg News - Sep 16, 2012

A Panasonic Corp. (6752) factory and a Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) dealership in China were damaged by fire as demonstrations over a territorial dispute with Japan widened, prompting Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to urge the Chinese government to ensure the safety of its citizens.

Smoke and flames were reported as coming from Panasonic’s electronic-parts plant in eastern Shandong province’s Qingdao city, said Atsushi Hinoki, a Tokyo-based Panasonic spokesman. Keisuke Kirimoto, a Toyota spokesman, said an auto dealership in the same port city was damaged, and the company was checking for losses in other cities.

Tensions between Asia’s two largest economies escalated after Noda’s government said last week his country would purchase disputed islands in the East China Sea from their private Japanese owner, prompting China to dispatch government vessels near the islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The row takes place as both countries grapple with a global economic slowdown and China’s Communist Party prepares for a generational leadership change.

“I intend to strongly demand that the Chinese government ensure security” of Japanese citizens, Noda said today on public broadcaster NHK’s “Sunday Debate” program. “I strongly object” to the burning of Japanese flags and the protests.

Japan’s new ambassador to China died today after an illness, the Foreign Ministry said.
‘Down with Japan Devils’

Protests occurred in Qingdao, Xi’an, Guangzhou and Hong Kong yesterday as more than 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the Embassy of Japan in Beijing. Japan’s Kyodo News said more than 40,000 people joined the demonstrations in 20 Chinese cities. Overseas Chinese in Houston and Chicago also protested the Japanese government’s purchase of the islands, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In Shanghai, hundreds of riot police separated groups of protesters as they gathered outside the Japanese consulate chanting, “down with Japan devils, boycott Japanese goods, give back Diaoyu. ” There were no reports of injuries.

“Japan is becoming more and more arrogant and the feelings of Chinese are increasingly being oppressed,” said Xiao Feng, 26, an office worker who came to Shanghai to join a few hundred other protesters from Jiangxi province. “We need to step up and make our feelings known that they can’t just have their way.”
Fishing Starts

Chinese fishermen from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces may resume their activities near disputed islands with Japan today after a three-month seasonal moratorium, China National Radio reported. More than 1,000 fishing boats go there every year, according to CNR.

Activists from Hong Kong plan to sail to the islands on Sept. 18, China National Radio reported on its website yesterday. Japan last month arrested and deported a group that departed from Hong Kong and landed on the islets to assert China’s claim.

Japan’s incoming envoy Shinichi Nishimiya died this morning after an illness, the Foreign Ministry said in an e-mailed statement. Nishimiya was sent to the hospital for an unspecified illness two days after his appointment, the ministry said on Sept. 13.

Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto returned to Tokyo yesterday after cutting short a visit to Australia, public broadcaster NHK reported.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Chua Kong Ho in Shanghai at kchua6@bloomberg.net; Mariko Yasu in Tokyo at myasu@bloomberg.net; Yuki Hagiwara in Tokyo at yhagiwara1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net

[gunjur]

Posting it here since there is no US economic thread.
US states that have lost the most jobs to China

The Economic Policy Institute analyzed American jobs lost to China between 2001 and 2011. During that time, “the trade deficit with China eliminated or displaced more than 2.7 million U.S. jobs

50,000 manufacturing facilities have been closed since 2001 with very few coming back anytime soon. The only way to get a manufacturing resurgence off the ground is for the federal government to crack down on China’s currency manipulation and to get American companies to truly invest in manufacturing

The states most affected are (in terms of % jobs lost):
1. New Hampshire
2. California
3. Massachusetts
4. Oregon
5. North Carolina
6. Minnesota
7. Idaho
8. Vermont
9. Colorado
10. Texas

[wong]

Good thing the Japanese can always move these plants to India. Oh, wait...



Thailand it is then. LOL.

[member_20317]

Is this true?

King Long buses that keep breaking down are not King Longs

.
In fact, right in BRF we had a discussion about the Ding_Dong that Mumbai is getting (the entire deal reeked of corruption and madness), about how it made no sense at all, how it was a disaster in the making and the Chinese Ding-Dongs shouldn't be touched with a barge pole.

Now, whether the King-Longs assembled at Mohali are King Longs or "Cerita" . Well, ALL the Volvo Bus bodies are built by local builders such as Jaico and Azad , out of Volvo supplied chassis aggregates of course. Volvo sells them as name branded buses to everyone and are EXCELLENT . Same with Mercedes Benze and of course Tata and Ashok Leyland.

So are the Volvo buses built by Jaico, Volvo or Jaico ? How come the Jaico and other built multinational and Indian brands are ultra reliable, but the Chinese buses keep breaking down ?

This seems like a desperate attempt by the King Long fellows to wash their hands off a disastrous and substandard product. I am just waiting for the Chinese metro cars that the Bombay Metro have ordered to start falling apart and they will come running back to Bombardier and BEML and others being built right here in India.

Bombardiers are running on DMRC. Excellent. Considering it is taking so much traffic in NCR kind of place.

[Aditya_V]

Good thing the Japanese can always move these plants to India. Oh, wait...


Thailand it is then. LOL.

Well see one swallow does not make a summer and neither does one flood in thailand makes Japanese to move business away from Thailand. Given the Japanese investment in projects like Chennai- bengaluru Highway, we can expect some amount of Japanese Investment in India away from China

[shaardula]

hang on wong,

but aren't we all led to believe that china is a model society in which harmony, peace and organization in the single minded of pursuit of progress, the ultimate goal?

i mean, sure, in india such things happen all the time. we burn and destroy public and private property on an yearly basis, over various sundry grievances, most of which are domestic. but we have never shied away from that image or covered up such acts. but china was supposed to be a model country, with an enlightened population, and an uber efficient governance system, where such things don't happen. so what happened?

isn't it sad that even china is now reduced to such rowdy behavior? infact, this is ominous since, given all the propaganda about the efficiency of the chinese state, the logical conclusion is that a rioting of this scale has state sanction. either that, or the more ominous implication that the efficiency of the chinese state is a thin veneer.

see we have a saying in our country. kai yali aagadavaru, mai parachi konDrante. those who where helpless and couldn't stand up to the real problem, gorged themselves instead in despair. that is how this whole thing appears.

[Suraj]

Well done, shaardula!

[ArmenT]

http://news.techworld.com/security/3381 ... n-new-pcs/

Microsoft discovers Chinese malware pre-installed on new PCs

Microsoft has published evidence of an extraordinary conspiracy in which potent botnet malware was apparently installed and hidden on PCs during their manufacture in China.

In ‘Operation B70’ started in August 2011, Microsoft documents how its Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) bought 20 brand new laptops and desktop PCs from various cities in China, finding that four were infected with pre-installed backdoor malware, including one with a known rootkit called ‘Nitol’.

Tracing Nitol’s activity back to an extensive network of global command and control (C&C) servers, the team discovered that the malware that has infected PCs to build a larger bot, most probably used to launch DDoS attacks.

Once in situ, Nitol would spread beyond the PCs on which it had been pre-installed by copying itself to USB and other removable drives.

Disturbingly, other malware hosted on the main domain used as C&C by Nitol was capable of performing just about every nasty in the malware criminal’s armoury, including keylogging, controlling webcams, and changing search settings.

This hints at the disturbing possibility that the pre-installed malware tactic is almost certainly much more significant than previously realised.

That PCs are being pre-installed with malware during or soon after manufacture confirmed a long-held suspicion that had prompted Microsoft to investigate supply chain security, the firm said.
...
....

This revelation can't be good for business.

[Austin]

Dollar no longer primary oil currency as China begins to sell oil using Yuan

[member_20317]

http://news.techworld.com/security/3381 ... n-new-pcs/

Microsoft discovers Chinese malware pre-installed on new PCs

Microsoft has published evidence of an extraordinary conspiracy in which potent botnet malware was apparently installed and hidden on PCs during their manufacture in China.

In ‘Operation B70’ started in August 2011, Microsoft documents how its Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) bought 20 brand new laptops and desktop PCs from various cities in China, finding that four were infected with pre-installed backdoor malware, including one with a known rootkit called ‘Nitol’.

Tracing Nitol’s activity back to an extensive network of global command and control (C&C) servers, the team discovered that the malware that has infected PCs to build a larger bot, most probably used to launch DDoS attacks.

Once in situ, Nitol would spread beyond the PCs on which it had been pre-installed by copying itself to USB and other removable drives.

Disturbingly, other malware hosted on the main domain used as C&C by Nitol was capable of performing just about every nasty in the malware criminal’s armoury, including keylogging, controlling webcams, and changing search settings.

This hints at the disturbing possibility that the pre-installed malware tactic is almost certainly much more significant than previously realised.

That PCs are being pre-installed with malware during or soon after manufacture confirmed a long-held suspicion that had prompted Microsoft to investigate supply chain security, the firm said.
...
....

This revelation can't be good for business.

Is there any way to ensure that a computer is either not infected in this manner before the purchase or even more importantly how do we detect and immunize our computers against these?

[ArmenT]

Is there any way to ensure that a computer is either not infected in this manner before the purchase or even more importantly how do we detect and immunize our computers against these?

The malwares in the article were Windows based and came pre-installed with the computers. So, after you purchase a new machine, you can try formatting the disk entirely and then re-installing Windows from an original Microsoft CD, or you can install an alternate OS from a trusted source, such as Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD etc. (which is what I do anyway, not because of any security issue, but simply because most of the environment, tools and languages I work with in my professional capacity are *nix based).

Of course, it is also possible that the code in the ROM BIOS chips can be tampered with. These can be trickier and can survive OS reinstalls. To prevent such stuff from happening, BIOS manufacturers such as AMI, Dell, Phoenix etc. should provide free utilities on their website which query the ROM BIOS memory and compute the checksum for the code in there. If the checksum doesn't match the known checksum for the BIOS version, then the chip has been tampered by the PC manufacturer. Also since ROM chips these days are EEPROMS, BIOS manufacturers could also provide utilities to flash the BIOS and put back the original code in there. The public should pressure the major BIOS manufacturers to write such utility programs and make them freely available.

Fun thing is that one security researcher actually demonstrated a particularly nasty ROM BIOS hack (he gave it the very SDRE name of "Rakshasa" ) in Defcon recently, which infects the ROM chips of multiple peripherals, so that each one could keep an eye out for the others and re-infect them if one was reflashed. He mentioned in the presentation that stuff like this easily could be installed by a Chinese manufacturer at the factory. Unfortunately Intel is not taking him very seriously .
See Link 1 and link 2 for the details.

[member_20317]

Thanks ArmenT ji, that was some good education for me.

[Gus]

Dollar no longer primary oil currency as China begins to sell oil using Yuan

They are a net importer. It does not matter what they do. It is the KSA, Iraq, UAE that matters and they are in a bearhug with unkle.

[vina]

Posting without comment.
Beggars Fenced Off at Temple Fair in China

[vina]

Good thing the Japanese can always move these plants to India. Oh, wait...

Yawn.. Chinese Faithfools at it again. Now the PRC Faithfools (with govt support of course), call for the murder of all Japanese. In any civilized country, they would be prosecuted for hate speech and incitement to murder. But then, you are talking of the country of Mao Tse Dong and the "Gleat Reap Folwald" which cost what 40/50/60 million lives and Red Terror ?

"Even if the whole of China is covered with tombs, [we] must kill all Japanese; even if no grass grows in China…."

Audi Says It Regrets Anti Japan Photo at it's Dealership

[Kukreja]

Posting without comment.
Beggars Fenced Off at Temple Fair in China

[wong]

^^^^

In India they just blind and maim the beggars (remember slumdog millionaire??). I guess that's better in your eyes (excuse the pun).

[nakul]

^^^^

& everybody in China from the sweeper to the president is a Kung fu expert. Even I see movies