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

At least we know it's not the Russians!

[conJunk]

I used to work in physical security (a clerical job I had in high school), and it was always fun to talk to the old-timers and hear their stories.

My favorite was about how the KGB operatives in DC in the late 50s stayed in good graces wtih their Moscow overloads with a minumum of effort:

They were supposed to keep tabs on the ongoings of the US political system by establishing inside contacts, and reporting back. So, they just summarized the political news from each day's New York Times, and kept their jobs for years.

The Americans pulled an good one on them: To spy at the Russian consolate in New York, the CIA recruited Xerox to install a minature camera in the consolate's copy equipment. When he came to do "regular maitenance" each month, he'd also replace the full tapes with new ones.

Sorry for no linkies, my source for these is an 80 year old CPP.