March 30, 2009
Steve Collins
Given the previous discoveries of Russian and Chinese spying and cyberwarfare efforts vs. the USA and other nations, it may come as no surprise that another Chinese spying ring was found. This Chinese spy operation, discovered by a group of Canadian sleuths, had “infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices…” The spy network, called “Ghostnet,” is “by far the largest to come to light in terms of countries affected.” This network seems to have been initially formed to spy on the operations of the Dalai Lama and various Asian countries, but expanded to target many other nations as well.
The Canadian team which unmasked the spy operations traced the cyberspying efforts back to three control servers in China and one in Southern California. This should tip off American investigators to realize that Chinese spying operations are “moving onshore” into American locations. The link describes how the Canadian team tracked and identified the Chinese spy ring, and it makes for very interesting readers (especially to those of you who are computer “techies”).
China isn’t the only nation spying on America. The second link reports that “Iran has gained access to U.S. nuclear power plants and detailed knowledge of their operations” (emphasis added). An Iranian engineer was arrested and convicted for transferring “nuclear software to Iran.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand this spying effort by Iran may be prelude to a terrorist attack within the USA. Having “detailed knowledge” about American nuclear plants leads inevitably to that conclusion. I hope someone told the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Earlier blogs reported that Russian hackers had shut down the computer systems of Latvia in a cyberattack, so all three of the key Gog-Magog nations (Russia, China and Iran) are feasting on the military, political, technical and economic secrets of the West. In terms of the electronic battleground, the USA and the western world is already under heavy attack. One wonders how many other spying operations are still functioning which have not yet been discovered?
It would appear that the USA may be reaching the point where it has no secrets left.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.html
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2009/me_iran0249_03_26.asp
