Saturday, 31 May 2008

The Chinese are hacking us


The Chinese are in our bad books this morning.

The Telegraph carries the story that

Chinese officials are suspected of secretly copying the contents of a US government laptop computer during a visit by Carlos Gutierrez, the American trade secretary.
the paper adds that

The Chinese cyberspies then allegedly tried to use the information to hack into US government computers.
The copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Mr Gutierrez’s trip to Beijing for trade talks last December.


Meanwhile conspiracy theories abound (via Coffee House) that the Chinese were behind the New York blackout of 2003

The National Journal magazine claims

Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.

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