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US Inadvertently Enabled Chinese Google Hackers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the um-yeah-we-meant-to-do-that dept.

Phrogman writes "In this CNN article by Bruce Schneier, he states that the US Government inadvertently enabled Chinese hackers access to Google's Gmail. The article states 'Google made headlines when it went public with the fact that Chinese hackers had penetrated some of its services, such as Gmail, in a politically motivated attempt at intelligence gathering. The news here isn't that Chinese hackers engage in these activities or that their attempts are technically sophisticated — we knew that already — it's that the US government inadvertently aided the hackers.'" Update: 02/22 20:26 GMT by S : As readers have noted, Schneier said not long after he wrote this article that he no longer thinks this is what happened.

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Ahem. by Pojut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://livingwithanerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/TerroristsHateFreedom.gif

    That is all.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  2. Re:Open letter to Chinese computer professionals: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nice sentiment, but Capitalism isn't the problem. Crony Capitalism is the problem. The wealthy gamble with the people's money. If they win, they keep all the profits. If they lose, politicians make sure the taxpayer bails them out. This needs to stop.

  3. Not only that, but even more relevant... by daveschroeder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...is the fact that 30-some other companies -- companies without any such lawful surveillance facilities -- were also compromised as part of this Chinese operation, and all accounts indicate it was via 0-day vulnerabilities in IE and JavaScript-enabled PDF documents, not via any mechanism to enable surveillance intercepts.

    This was Schneier using the incident as a platform to grind a political axe (probably based on a bogus tip), from which he wisely backed off.

  4. tired, failed argument by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the banking system bubbled and bursted a number of times in the 1800s-1920s, because it wasn't regulated. so the government came in and regulated it. it bubbled and bursted again in 2007 because the government was hard at work REMOVING regulations for a decade before that

    and then idiots like you come along and go "look, the government is involved, so its all their fault"

    the only thing at fault in the government is idiots in the government who think the solution is less government

    you WANT heavy government regulation for a healthy functional economy. simple solid fact

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it