Your comment is thoughtful so I'll reply in kind. Is there any other plausible actor who could be carrying on this attack for so long? And is motivated to attack GreatFire? The Chinese government controls their Internet connection to the world with a firm hand. Who else could it be?
I agree that more technical evidence of the attack's source would be welcome. But the analysis published here is pretty convincing. Specifically "the GC acted on traffic between hop 17 and hop 18, the same link we observed as responsible for the GFW". There's pcap files if you want to verify for yourself.
Is there any other plausible actor who could be carrying on this attack for so long?
For me the more interesting question remains: Why would China be carrying out this attack? I have yet to hear a plausible motive.
Other plausible actors would be the people who have an interest in creating the perception of a "cyber threat", in order to implement more "protections".
Protections like an Executive Order[1] "to target those attempting cyber attacks on US assets and infrastructure".
After all, with both China and Russia[2] attacking us, who would argue against the urgent need for such measures?
And yet, technically either China or the NSA (via their control over Tier1 carriers) could be responsible for this attack. Perhaps it really was China. But considering we're talking about state-level secret agencies in any case it's a bit sad how reluctant many HNers seem to be to even consider any scenario other than the mainstream narrative.
> Why would China be carrying out this attack? I have yet to hear a plausible motive.
Exactly this. Not to mention the hundreds (if not thousands) of sites the government is more likely to target, that are far less known than GitHub and that they could take off-line indefinitely, with little or no outrage from anyone in the West.
>Is there any other plausible actor who could be carrying on this attack for so long?
Well, if we're talking about government-level conspiracy, how about the NSA?
We know they have the capability to infiltrate telecom systems, we also know that following the Snowden leaks, there has been a large amount of negative feelings towards the NSA amongst programmers many of whom have been deciding to actively work against the NSA's attempts to collect and eavesdrop on everything.
So what better way to get a bunch of programmers and hackers back on your side and interested in hacking for you at a state level, than feigning an attack from a foreign power and stirring up "we need to fight back" sentiment, that gets mentioned (often near the top) of every single HN thread on this matter.
To me, that's a far more plausible motive than any of the motives being attributed to the Chinese government.
I also see that many of the assumptions made by people about the Chinese government's capabilities and motivations are obviously being made by people with little/no understanding and experience of the Chinese - both from a cultural and technological perspective.
That being said, I don't believe this attack had any real nation state involvement. It's far more likely to have been "patriotic" Chinese hackers (who often perform hacks on perceived slights against the Chinese nation) rather than any sort of explicit nation-state action.
It's far more plausible and fits in with exactly the sort and style of hacks that they've been known to do in the past.
I agree that more technical evidence of the attack's source would be welcome. But the analysis published here is pretty convincing. Specifically "the GC acted on traffic between hop 17 and hop 18, the same link we observed as responsible for the GFW". There's pcap files if you want to verify for yourself.