Chinese Websites Used As Launchpads For Cracking

An anonymous reader writes "A Washington Post article reports that Chinese networks are being used to breach hundreds of unclassified U.S. government systems. The article goes on to say that some analysts believe the activity to be tied to the Chinese government, although there is also some dissent." From the article: "Whether the attacks constitute a coordinated Chinese government campaign to penetrate U.S. networks and spy on government databanks has divided U.S. analysts. Some in the Pentagon are said to be convinced of official Chinese involvement; others see the electronic probing as the work of other hackers simply using Chinese networks to disguise the origins of the attacks."

Comments

unclassified could be espionage as well

[HBI]

Under the heading "unclassified documents":

"For Official Use Only" - things which don't contain classified data, but contain information that should be kept within the government. Someone made a decision to mark this document as FOUO.

"Sensitive" - a more generic type of document which contains information which is probably not suitable for public release, but is not determined as such. This may be marked FOUO at some future point.

The big problem with the standard information classification guidelines is what you need to do if you classify the document. First, people can't attach them to the normal email system, or in fact even have it on an unclassified computer system. Second, if you print it out you have to print it on a classified-only printer, lock it in a safe and sign for it, sealing the room from those who have no clearance before taking a look. Google AR 25-2 and read the pdf (public distribution) for more specific information on how such documents are handled.

This provides a lot of impetus to keep data that is not truly secret from being classified as such. So many documents are FOUO or considered "sensitive". It doesn't mean the data in the hands of an enemy couldn't be damaging, particularly in the aggregate.

Re:If you've done nothing wrong...

[yotto]

I'll assume for the moment that you didn't realize my sarcasm when I say:

I was being sarcastic, and showing one obvious instance where, even if you /do/ believe that statement about the "Good Guys", you'll see why it's flawed anyway.