December 7, 2007:
Britain has called in outside
consultants to develop methods to defend British government and commercial
secrets from being stolen by increasingly aggressive Chinese Cyber War efforts.
While China continues to insist it is innocent, MI5 (Britain's internal
security organization) is convinced that China has been carrying out a massive,
and largely well hidden, espionage campaign via the Internet. China has
demanded proof, but MI5 refuses to provide details. That's because letting
China know what MI5 has found, would result in those sources disappearing.
Commercial Internet security firms are a better source of information on what's
going on. China has apparently contracted out some of the work, to Internet
criminal gangs in other countries (like Russia, which is becoming a safe haven
for many major Cyber Crime operations.) But China also uses some well known,
and usually effective, techniques to hide attacks coming from China itself.
Apparently some stuff is so sensitive (particularly British military secrets),
that the Chinese don't trust it to foreigners. But commercial secrets are
another matter. China can use this stuff, and also sell or barter it on the
black market (for commercial and technical data). China apparently believes
that, as long as it keeps denying any culpability, no harm will come to them.
But many military Cyber War officials in Europe and the United States are
urging that counterattacks be made. That may already be happening, but no one
is going to talk about it openly.