Does anyone recall the missing hard drives from LLL or los alamos, which were grabbed by the chinese spy?
Or the theft of an AWAX by the chinese?
They are not stupid.
When i was at lockheed the chinese were phishing lockheed staff who had attended defense conferences. They managed to get a worm in lockheed that trickle fed them stolen data.
When it was discovered they opened the flood gates and tried to dump mass data out of the lockheed network - which, at the time, only had three egress points to the internet such that lockheed had to shit them down.
Then, lockheed tried to keep an air-gap between vendors they were using... but the chinese hacked the vendors such that they coulld compromise the usb drives being used as the sneakerbet between lockheed and the vendors....
Stupidity is not always evenly distributed. Both the Russians and Americans threw away money on paranormal research, for example, largely because they thought the other side was doing it.
You could argue that there are more stupid Chinese than stupid Americans, but only on the basis that there are way more Chinese than Americans.
The real question is whether they have stupid people making important decisions for them. Or, more stupid than the US has. At least we can be sure that they don't elect them to do it.
Or the theft of an AWAX by the chinese?
They are not stupid.
When i was at lockheed the chinese were phishing lockheed staff who had attended defense conferences. They managed to get a worm in lockheed that trickle fed them stolen data.
When it was discovered they opened the flood gates and tried to dump mass data out of the lockheed network - which, at the time, only had three egress points to the internet such that lockheed had to shit them down.
Then, lockheed tried to keep an air-gap between vendors they were using... but the chinese hacked the vendors such that they coulld compromise the usb drives being used as the sneakerbet between lockheed and the vendors....
The chinese are not stupid.