The Chinese Are Coming, The Chinese Are Coming!
Author: Dave Lewis
OK, enough already. There is the concerted effort in the mainstream press to paint the Chinese government as the ultimate hacker boogey men. Are they innocent? Of course not. On the same token they are in no way the only trouble makers on the internet. Newsweek will be running an article this month in their Oct. 15th issue on the problem of internet security as it applies to the US government.
In a single case this summer, an attack by hackers disabled a reported 1,500 Pentagon computers. And the siege is continuing. The Defense Department detects 3 million unauthorized “scans”—or attempts by would-be intruders to access official networks—on its computers every day, according to a Pentagon spokesman. Now the Bush administration, worried particularly about computer attacks from China, is aiming to beef up American defenses. According to officials in the cybersecurity industry, who like several sources quoted in this article did not want to be named discussing confidential programs, the White House is quietly preparing a major “cyberdefense” initiative to be announced later this year.
Beefing up the defenses is a grand idea regardless of whether or not it is the Chinese, the wiley Norwegians, or heaven for fend, the USA itself. The web does not know the simple pleasures of a man with a gun standing guard on an arbitrary line drawn on a map. It is a living organism that is rife with everything from the well intentioned souls selling furbies down to the lowest scumbag spammer. However, the press feels the need to be able to clearly label the antagonist. This week on “spin the wheel of bag guys” show we have landed on…China.
It’s tiresome.
I’m by no means suggesting that China is a patsy. But, to say “ta da there is the evil” and point in a fashion befitting “Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life” is a tad much. So yes, build the defenses but let’s be honest about it.
But measures under consideration include giving authority to the National Security Agency to monitor private computer systems—which could prompt new domestic-spying concerns—and purchasing network routers that are more secure. Spokespeople for the NSA, the director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon—all of whom are expected to play a role in the new plan—referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS spokesman Russ Knocke also declined to discuss any forthcoming computer-security plan.
Who’s on first?
Tags: China Hackers, Media, Media On Hackers
