A Chinese hacking group that launched patriotic cyberattacks on websites in the U.S. and other countries is reorganizing after years of inactivity. And its founder says he can’t guarantee members won’t launch attacks again, even though the group’s new focus will be on defensive research.

The re-emergence of the Honker Union of China highlights a continued nationalistic streak among certain influential Chinese hackers—something that could be a liability for China’s government if it sparks independent cyberattacks, but that could also serve its goals if it inspires talented hackers to seek work with the government or the military.

Lin Yong, also known by the online name Lion, ran the group’s website from 2000 to 2004, when members attacked many foreign websites for political causes–mainly by defacing them, or altering their appearance and leaving messages. Mr. Lin himself attacked websites in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan, he said in a recent phone interview.

The group took part, for instance, in a website defacement battle between Chinese and U.S. hackers in 2001, when the midair collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy plane caused a diplomatic firestorm. The Honker Union at the time had up to 60,000 users of its online forums and over 20,000 on its electronic-mailing list, Mr. Lin said. According to a Dow Jones Newswires report at the time, among the group’s targets was a Philadelphia City government website, which was altered to show a waving Chinese flag and the words: “Beat down Imperialism of American!”

The Honker Union has never had ties to China’s government or military, Mr. Lin said. “Honker” transliterates the key term in the group’s Chinese name: “hong ke,” or “red hacker.”

The group’s new incarnation will be different, Mr. Lin said. Mr. Lin himself, who is 31 years old and lives in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, says he hasn’t been involved in the Chinese computer-security community since 2006 and now trades stocks and foreign currency for a living. He has also become a Buddhist, one “large reason” he decided to reorganize the Honker Union, he said in a message on the group’s new website.

The reorganized Honker Union will hold network-security training sessions at colleges and encourage Chinese hackers and security students to use their skills to seek legitimate jobs, rather than turning to cybercrime to make money, Lin said. The group will also develop an online platform meant to help users turn security-related research into legitimate business plans, including by helping them find investment, Mr. Lin said.

“Mainly now [we want] to get them to put energy into researching technology, and to help protect the networks of Chinese companies, government ministries and research institutions,” he said.

When asked if the group would continue to launch attacks, Mr. Lin said: “We won’t, we probably won’t. If there’s some special incident, I can’t guarantee that other group members won’t have their own ideas. At least, right now there aren’t signs of that.”

Lin also said attacks now would be “unnecessary,” given China’s rise on the international stage and an increase in Chinese regulations governing hacking. “You have to go according to the international situation. China’s international status is already not bad,” he said.

Foreign officials and security experts for years have pointed to China as the source of many politically motivated attacks on foreign companies and governments. China’s government has repeatedly denied sponsoring hacking activity and said it is a major victim of hacking attacks.

Authorities have also discouraged cyberattacks by private citizens, including in direct communication with hackers like Mr. Lin, who said a provincial police official in 2001 discouraged him from attacking the U.S. websites. (Mr. Lin says his group went ahead with attacks anyway and wasn’t punished.)

The group’s reboot comes after two other prominent Chinese hackers last month led a public call for their peers to steer clear of cybercrime. A larger circle of hackers, including Mr. Lin, reviewed a document containing the appeal and put it online.

That document, called the “Chinese Hackers’ Self-Discipline Convention,” asks that hackers pledge to avoid acts that could harm the public, such as stealing from regular Internet users. But it doesn’t condemn all forms of cyberattacks, leaving unclear whether it would allow activist attacks on foreign targets. For instance, the document says denial-of-service attacks–in which a target website can be knocked offline—aren’t legitimate if they are done for profit or are “not in the public interest.” It doesn’t elaborate.

At a Shanghai conference last month held by the organizers of the appeal against cybercrime, Mr. Lin received an award recognizing his “social influence,” underlining the strong association his group had with the surge in patriotic cyberattacks from China a decade ago. Mr. Lin also first announced his plan to revive the Honker Union in a speech at the event.

Mr. Lin has since put a new manifesto for the Honker Union on its website. Posted on Oct. 1, the “National Day” holiday that commemorates the 1949 founding of Communist China, it highlights a need to help prepare the country to defend itself in any “information war.”

“There are currently companies and governments in certain countries with specialized teams actively preparing for information war, and in this area we are obviously behind,” part of the manifesto says. “As security technicians, we must cultivate future technical talent and enter companies and institutions, taking up the work of defense and construction in information security. This is our job and our social responsibility.”

“Honker is a kind of spirit, a kind of patriotic spirit,” it says.

–Owen Fletcher

Reforms started in the late 1970s with the phasing out of collectivized agriculture, and expanded to include the gradual liberalization of prices, fiscal decentralization, increased autonomy for state enterprises, the foundation of a diversified banking system, the development of stock markets, the rapid growth of the non-state sector, and the opening to foreign trade and investment.

In 2009, China announced that by 2020 it would reduce carbon intensity 40% from 2005 levels.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

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On top of this, foreign direct investment (FDI) this year was set to “surpass $100 billion”, compared to $90 billion last year, ministry officials predicted.

Last year was the eighth consecutive year that the nation’s ODI had grown.

China is aiming to be the world’s largest new energy vehicle market by 2020 with 5 million cars.

China’s challenge in the early 21st century will be to balance its highly centralized political system with an increasingly decentralized economic system.

Agriculture is by far the leading occupation, involving over 50% of the population, although extensive rough, high terrain and large arid areas – especially in the west and north – limit cultivation to only about 10% of the land surface.

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Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of special economic zones to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods.

China’s economy, though strengthened by the more liberal economic policies of the 1980s and 90s, continues to suffer from inadequate transportation, communication, and energy resources.

Excerpt from:
Patriotic Chinese Hacking Group Reboots