Chinese Government Hacking Exposed

I was just going to put a link to this, but it deserves a whole post. If you read one thing today, you must read Ethan Guttman's awesome article on the Chinese government's coordinated hacking, security infiltration of Chinese and Falungong organizations overseas, which revolves around an interview with ex-hacker for the Chinese gov't. A taste:

China’s operational landscape widened. In 2004, a car full of Falun Gong legal-activist practitioners on their way to serve papers against party officials in Pretoria, South Africa, was strafed in a drive-by shooting on a highway outside of the Johannesburg airport. Break-ins and vandalism at the Hong Kong and Taipei offices of a Falun Gong–associated newspaper, Epoch Times, followed. In 2006, the North American Falun Gong system administrator was rolled up in a carpet and beaten while mainland agents ransacked the files and computers in his suburban Atlanta home.

The 6-10 Office also created fake refugees—young, trained to mimic Falun Gong behavior, and holding paperwork confirming time spent in laogai, China’s penal system. “No matter how clever the Australian or the American government is,” Hao told me, “they have no way to distinguish the real [Falun Gong refugees] and the police officers.” To create friction between dissident groups, the refugee-bots planted themselves in dissident media centers in New York and Washington. Even if many were ultimately unmasked, they created havoc for internal network security.

Go to it!
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