Should we fear China?

With news that Google is threatening to leave China over its oppressive censorship and hacking systems, this news (which is impossible to verify) is either scare-mongering on a massive scale or signs of a brave new world:

A classified FBI report indicates that China has secretly developed an army of 180,000 cyberspies that “poses the largest single threat to the United States for cyberterrorism and has the potential to destroy vital infrastructure, interrupt banking and commerce, and compromise sensitive military and defense databases.”

These spies are already launching 90,000 attacks a year just against U.S. Defense Department computers, according to a senior FBI analyst familiar with the contents of the report, making news Tuesday that the Chinese government may have hacked the email accountings of human-rights activists, prompting Google to consider withdrawing from that country, seem like child’s play.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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