Journalists' Yahoo E-Mail Accounts Compromised In China

andy1307 writes "According to this article in the New York Times, 'In what appears to be a coordinated assault, the e-mail accounts of at least a dozen rights activists, academics and journalists who cover China have been compromised by unknown intruders. The infiltrations, which involved Yahoo e-mail accounts, appeared to be aimed at people who write about China and Taiwan, rendering their accounts inaccessible, according to those who were affected. In the case of this reporter, hackers altered e-mail settings so that all correspondence was surreptitiously forwarded to another e-mail address. ... The victims of the most recent intrusions included a law professor in the United States, an analyst who writes about China's security apparatus and several print journalists based in Beijing and Taipei, the capital of Taiwan."

Comments

Hmm yeah

[Dunbal]

Reminds me of all those emails I get from the head of the International Bank of Nigeria who somehow has to use hotmail/gmail/yahoo mail. Or how the "British National Lottery" also can't afford it's own mail server.

Seriously, "journalists" can't use anything but yahoo? Or even if they were limited to yahoo - they can't encrypt their email?

I suspect these "journalists" are just some "random group of people" and that the story is just more hype.

This is why you don't do business with China

[smooth wombat]

People roll their eyes when I tell them I don't buy products made in China. I refuse to support a government with such an abusive human rights record.

It's tough at times finding a product not made in China, but I use the free market to make my point.

Some people talk the talk when it comes to making a statement. Very few actually walk the walk.

Re:This is why you don't do business with China

[Noam.of.Doom]

Everytime we buy Chinese stuff, we're supporting communism.

And don't forget that it makes baby Jesus cry.

Re:This is why you don't do business with China

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that it likely matters much, but WHICH China? The PRC, or the ROC? The nonsense of the past 40+ years of "One China" is exactly that, and it's well past time to call BS on that fact. If simply stating the facts as they are should, God forbid, `offend` the powers that be in the PRC, too damn bad. Oh, that's right, they've already threatened to nuke Taiwan over a naming issue...y'know, in the past, that kind of tantrum would have garnered an immediate response of forming an alliance with the threatened state, and a follow up of pointing an equal number of the dreadful things (nukes) RIGHT BACK AT THE OFFENDING PARTY. Mutually Assured Destruction is not good, but it IS effective policy management when dealing with this sort of thing. I'm afraid we've sanitized the concept of war to the point that it no longer carries any meaning to the folks "in charge", perhaps a reminder of just how truly ugly, nasty, and horrible armed conflict really is should be delivered to these idiots on BOTH sides, just to wake them up for once and get some progress on the issue. Sucks to be us on the ground level, but that kind of suffering is probably inevitable at this point, further negotiations with tyrannies of this sort only prolongs the pain, and sells them the rope with which to hang ourselves. It should be fairly obvious by now, that the PRC was NEVER truly interested in resolving matters with the West in good faith, and the West was never truly able to influence the attitudes and mindset of those in power in the PRC. We are at war, and have been for a while, in spite of our best efforts to delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. Time for the charade to end.

Re:Damn Chinese!

[KiloByte]

https is very easy to MITM if you can inject bogus signed certificates. For that you need to control a CA. Like, for example, CNNIC whose root certificate is included in MSIE and Firefox.

Please to vote on the bug report to remove this security hole.

Re:Is anyone surprised?

[MightyMartian]

It doesn't always work out, but having a middle class helps, also because they have time, skills, and money to spend on politics.

China is the great experiment. It's been a given since the the English Civil War that a middle and mercantile classes will demand, and will ultimately take a greater share of the political system. I posit that the Chinese leadership is hoping to accomplish the creation of a thriving middle class without any great increase in political liberties. Will the experiment work? Hard to say. Damned scary if it does, that's for sure.