A senior Chinese military officer has called for a new national body to enforce Internet controls, while China faced fresh claims today about the source of hacking attacks that hit search giant Google. People’s Liberation Army Major General Huang Yongyin said China needed to keep pace with the efforts of other big powers to fight online infiltration and attacks. “For national security, the Internet has already become a new battlefield without gunpowder,” Huang wrote in the February issue of Chinese Cadres Tribune, a magazine published by the Communist Party’s influential Central Party School.
In January, the Internet search engine company, Google, threatened to pull back from China over complaints of censorship and sophisticated hacking from within China. Huang’s comments appeared after Western media reports pinpointed a vocational school whose graduates include military recruits as one source of the hacker attack on Google. The reports said the author of spyware used in the assault had government ties.
US government analysts believe the programme’s creator is a Chinese security consultant in his 30s who posted parts of the code on a hacker forum and described it as something he was “working on”, the Financial Times reported today. He works as a freelancer and did not launch the attack but Chinese officials had “special access” to his programming, the paper added, quoting a single, unnamed government researcher. “If he wants to do the research he’s good at, he has to toe the line now and again,” the researcher was quoted saying.
The allegations over the spyware are the latest episode in a dispute that has pitted Google and the United States against China, with its wall of Internet controls and legions of hackers. Washington has backed Google’s criticisms and urged Beijing to investigate hacking complaints thoroughly and transparently. Beijing has said it opposes hacking.
(Source: Reuters)
