-----Original Message----- From: andrew.wallace
It appears this is just western propaganda because:
One analyst said Friday that he is not sure the attacks point to the Chinese government. Rob Knake, a cybersecurity expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, said his analysis of results from a technology firm investigating the attacks suggests that they "were not state-sponsored or the work of an elite, sophisticated group such as the Chinese military."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503321.html
Andrew
At some point, due to fundamental human nature, it doesn't matter if a government is doing it or not. Imagine if private citizens of one country were shooting at the citizens of another country across the border while the army stood by and simply watched. The country on the receiving end asks for it to stop but the country where the shooting is originating from says "hey, we aren't doing it! It is originating from our country but it isn't the government doing it" where the receiving side says "I don't care who is doing it, please make them stop." It can be damaging to a country's or network operator's reputation as a good neighbor if they allow such chaos to continue without doing anything about it. In many other countries where governments exert less control, the network operators themselves often police their users by disconnecting those who are seen to engage in such activities. A network operator who refuses to cooperate is often seen by their peers as somehow "rogue" and may be shunned by the community. The point is that it doesn't matter who is at the keyboard or who is coding the malware. If they are enabled by their network operator or government looking the other way, then it is a natural tendency for people to instinctively hold them partially responsible for the conduct as being complicit in it. And that isn't anything unique with China in particular, the same thing goes for a network operator or government anywhere on the planet. I think in this case because China does exercise a lot of control over their network traffic, there is a natural tendency for people to become frustrated when they get the feeling that the government is doing nothing to stop this sort of traffic while other types of traffic are vigorously policed. So the next question would be, to what extent do the various network operators in China assist in disconnecting the sources of such traffic? I think I already know the answer.