Retaliatory Cyber Attacks Are Only Way To Stop China, Says Former FBI Director (afr.com)

Targeted cyber attacks and a strong deterrence capability are the most effective way of preventing China and other countries continuing to steal Australian commercial secrets, according to a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. From a report: Louis Freeh, who ran the FBI for almost eight years until 2001, said the threat of criminal charges or jail time would do little to prevent state-sponsored hackers from continuing to steal valuable intellectual property. "It's like trying to serve a subpoena on [Osama] Bin Laden -- it's not very effective," Mr Freeh said on the sidelines of a speech in Sydney on Monday night. His comments come as the federal government considers how best to respond to a surge in cyber attacks directed by China's peak security agency over the past year. An investigation by The Australian Financial Review and Nine News confirmed China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), was responsible for the recent wave of attacks on Australian companies. These formed part of what is known in cyber circles as "Operation Cloud Hopper", which was detected by Australia and its partners in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance.

Comments

Re:And here is a different idea

[pr0fessor]

This goes right a long with governments that want to have back doors to fight terror and crime but somehow magically it's only going to work for them and the bad guys will never be able to use it against us.

In the end we have aloud the uninitiated to set policies for something they don't understand and the resulting mess is going to be hard to clean up.