Chinese Election Timing is Perfect

AFP - 10/6/2006

Computer hackers based in China have launched sustained attacks on the computers of a US Commerce Department technology export office, a department official said.

I am the great and powerful Foley scandal!... Pay no attention to the Chan behind the curtain, twiddling the knobs and pulling the levers!

The official, who requested anonymity, said the attacks had originated from websites registered with Chinese Internet service providers.

It's good to see somebody making use of that high bandwidth ARPA technology we developed to protect our country.

Chinese-based hackers, especially in the Chinese province of Guangdong, have mounted systematic efforts to penetrate US government and industry computer networks in order to access secret information, according to computer security experts.

Why are these guys trying to work the hacking angle, to penetrate the US government networks? All they need to do is offer on-line sex to a few congressmen and they will be in like Flynn.

The experts and some US lawmakers believe the attacks are sanctioned by Chinese government agencies.

You mean they are not the good friend and trading partner we thought they were, when we bought that Belgian Waffle maker at Target for the irresistable price of $9.99?

The attacks on the Commerce Department have been so persistent that the affected office, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), has been forced to replace hundreds of computers and set up a new computer system.

They got a good deal on the new systems, complete with up to date BIOS security from Chinese giant Lenovo.

The bureau's work is sensitive because it supervises US exports of software and technology for commercial and military uses, as well as commodities.

They will still be supervising the Guangdong bittorrent service. If Guangdong doesn't follow their download, with a full upload to the Russians and the Venezuelans, there will be U.N. hell to pay.

"BIS discovered a targetted effort to gain access to BIS user accounts," said Richard Mills, a Commerce Department spokesman, without commenting on the origin of the attacks.

I'm sure those BIS users didn't use sensistive passwords like 'pooky' and 'snookums'. The Chinese would never guess those.

"They took a series of immediate action steps to ensure that no BIS data is compromised. We have no evidence that any BIS data has been lost or compromised," Mills said.

They changed the passwords to 'pooky123' and 'snookums123'.

Department officials are concerned about the hacking attacks because the bureau retains sensitive commercial and economic information on US exporters as well as data related to law enforcement records.

Yeah. They retain the information by letting bureaucrats bring unsecure laptops home, so they can continue to browse internet pRon uninterrupted.

In a bid to ramp up security, the bureau has restricted employees' Internet access to stand alone computers that are not linked to the bureau's network.

Darn! Now they have to use a credit card for pRon, instead of the Guangdong gratuity account.

The government squashed the deal with Lenovo after US lawmakers raised opposition to the plan on national security grounds.

Whew! Now they can order those computers from U.S. builders, using (heh) non-Chinese motherboards.

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