The hack was part of a computer sabotage campaign carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. This has been going on since at least 2002, the cable said.
I read this and the first thing that popped out at me was that China was contracting with private industry to attack an enemy in cyber space (the commons). In this case, that enemy was Google.
Also, just look at the list of folks they contracted with, and you wonder how is this not cyber privateering? Perhaps the Chinese understand the concept of ‘creating an industry out of destroying your enemies’, much better than the west. It is also the Chinese who are doing this, and not some poor third world country.
So this is the next thought that came to mind. If China is doing this, then why couldn’t the US use the same tool of cyber warfare against the Chinese, or even against a group like Wikileaks? Hell, we can even be open about it and issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal to individuals and companies in order to make this happen. Just a thought, and hey, China is doing it. lol –Matt
Chinese Government Ordered Hack on Google Servers: Wikileaks
By Clint Boulton2010-11-29
Wikileaks gave the New York Times a diplomatic cable that shows the Chinese government was responsible for the hack on Google’s Gmail system.
China’s government was indeed behind the hack on Google’s Gmail system earlier this year according to a cable captured by the controversial Wikileaks organization.
Wikileaks, which butters its bread collecting secret documents and seeding them in media outlets, snagged 250,000 American diplomatic cables dating back three years and released some of them to the New York Times and other media outlets.
The Times cited one of the cables as proof that “China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January.”
The hack was part of a computer sabotage campaign carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. This has been going on since at least 2002, the cable said.
A Google spokesperson told eWEEK: “We aren’t going to be able to comment. As you know, since we revealed this incident in January, we haven’t been speculating as to the parties responsible.”