Chinese Hackers Hailed as National Heroes

Sreeram Chaulia    02 May 2008

Beijing’s intrusions into government computers across the planet — most recently in India — are illegal and outrageous

 

While world publicity has mainly focused on the intrusion of the Chinese into the email system of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates last year, the fact is that Chinese hackers have been crawling all over the computer systems of a growing number of countries. The latest example is their recent foray into the web servers of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

The Indian incursion is being treated as the Internet equivalent of a terrorist attack on a national institution, threatening the security of India’s diplomatic and military communications. Although Chinese embassy officials in Delhi reacted angrily to news of the event as an “irresponsible fabrication,” the incident fits an emerging pattern of planned Chinese penetration of government websites and subsequent denial of responsibility.

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Although Beijing has vehemently objected to each of the allegations as malicious propaganda, the scale and nature of data stolen in these operations leaves little doubt about Chinese state involvement. The argument that the hackers, whose IP addresses go back to mainland China, are loose cannons working on their own simply to demonstrate their destructive technical skills does not square with the reality that Beijing has never prosecuted any of this burgeoning tribe