A Look Into the Chinese Hacker Underworld

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 2, 2010 @06:55AM from the fun-and-profit dept.

beachels416 writes "The NY Times gained access to a Chinese hacker-for-profit, referred to as 'Majia,' and observed him during one of his nightly 'sessions.' From the article: 'Oddly, Majia said his parents did not know that he was hacking at night [hacking is illegal in China]. But at one point, he explained the intricacies of computer hacking and stealing data while his mother stood nearby, listening silently, while offering a guest oranges and candy.' At another point Majia spoke about the recent Google attacks, and claimed to have particular knowledge of the exact vector used. Nothing too new, but an interesting read nevertheless."

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Re:Lots of content by timeOday · 2010-02-02 07:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually, even your negative synopsis of the piece flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which is that attacks of Chinese origin are all a carefully orchestrated by the ruthless and scheming Chinese government to displace America from its "rightful" place of world dominance. So, yeah, the idea that a lot of it might just be petty white-collar criminals who live with their moms is quite a different phenomenon.