U.S. Charges China with Cyber-Spying on American Firms

[jimmy olsen]

Yay? How is this going to work?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-charges-china-cyber-spying-american-firms-n108706

U.S. Charges China with Cyber-Spying on American Firms
By Pete Williams

The Justice Department has filed criminal charges against several Chinese government officials, accusing them of stealing American trade secrets through cyber espionage, according to U.S. officials familiar with the case.

It's the first time the United States has brought cyber espionage charges against a state actor.

Details of the charges are to be announced by Attorney General Eric Holder later on Monday.

The charges will name several individuals who are Chinese government employees, according to a U.S. official. "They used military and intelligence facilities to commit cyber espionage against U.S. companies," the official said.

The names of the targeted companies could not immediately be determined, but they were said to be in the energy and manufacturing sectors.

The Obama administration has long considered China the most aggressive nation in obtaining industrial secrets through spying.

"Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage," said the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a U.S. government agency, in a 2011 report.

A year ago, several U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, said hackers traced to China attacked their newsroom computer systems.

A spokesman for China's foreign ministry called any suggestion that the Chinese were involved in those intrusions "irresponsible," though U.S. security experts said China targeted news organizations in the U.S. and overseas to try to identify the sources of news leaks within the Chinese government.

Those disclosures prompted a computer security expert and former Justice Department lawyer, Marc Zwillinger to say, "the only computers these days that are safe from Chinese government hackers are computers that are turned off, unplugged, and thrown in the back seat of your car."

[KRonn]

Well, who could have seen this coming!       No surprise. And I assume that the US does it's own similar cyber sleuthing also, so the Chinese may respond in kind at some point.

[CountDeMoney]

Stop, or we'll say stop again.

[Queequeg]

Birds-------->tweet.

[Ideologue]

Bombard their forts.

[The Brain]

Yeah a gunboat up the Whangpoo will see this sorted in no time.

[Iormlund]

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. 

[KRonn]

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. 

Supposedly with all the spying the US does the US government isn't in the business of stealing corporate secrets. Supposedly....   

[CountDeMoney]

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. 

Supposedly with all the spying the US does the US government isn't in the business of stealing corporate secrets. Supposedly....   

I dunno, man...I can only imagine all the innovative, cutting-edge Chinese technology that Lockheed Martin only wishes they could get their hands on.

[Ideologue]

"If we lock our employees in the factory and threaten their families, we can radically increase productivity."

[dps]

If only we could get our hands on one of the Chinese Tu-4s, we could reverse-engineer it and start B-29 production back up.