Well, duh

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 12:17 PM Share

Wonder why I've been hammering on China for the last few days? If you need help getting on the clue bus, here's a quarter: Someone in China is targeting the computers of journalists. Nastiest twist of the day, from the New York Times's Andrew Jacobs:

In the case of this reporter, hackers altered e-mail settings so that all correspondence was surreptitiously forwarded to another e-mail address."

Symantec tells him it is detecting 60 directed malware attacks a day.

agitprop/flickr

EXPLORE:EAST ASIA, CHINA, MEDIA

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ZJIN

6:50 PM ET

March 31, 2010

I've been hammering on China?

I've been hammering on China? Hardly notice.

Your reason is NYtime's report? Did you read it before they published it?

GRANT

6:55 PM ET

March 31, 2010

Hammering on China? The past

Hammering on China? The past few days seemed to have been more domestic in nature.
On China and hackers, presuming that the Chinese government isn't involved*, then what steps does the Chinese government normally take on this?

*Yes China has been implicated more than once in these affairs, but politics and international theory mean that it has to be treated as a sovereign nation.

ERIC_STRATTONIII

5:51 AM ET

April 1, 2010

Grant and Kunino

You two would be screaming bloody blue murder if the same article implicated the US was doing this overseas to news org, why the skepticism on the Chinese? Grant, you are right, they have been implicated time and time again, so if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck.....why isn't it a Duck this time?

GRANT

7:02 PM ET

April 1, 2010

Because, as I stated

Because, as I stated previously, we have to treat them as a sovereign nation. They are one, and pushing too hard without the strongest evidence possible will encourage retaliation. That means that we have to endure some amount of cyberattacks in the same manner that China does with us. We may not like it, but that is the reality we have. Sadly, one of the diplomatic mysteries of the 21st century is what are appropriate levels of response to cyberattacks in the same manner as building nuclear weapons in 20th century.