UK PM's Aide Loses BlackBerry In Chinese Honeytrap 260
longacre writes "The Times of London is today reporting a January incident in which a top aide to Prime Minister Gordon Brown discovered his BlackBerry missing from his hotel room after spending the night with an attractive woman who approached him in a Shanghai disco. Seems this was a run-of-the-mill BlackBerry without any encryption, only a simple password lock. The greatest fear is that, even if the device did not contain any sensitive messages at the time, there was likely enough information on board for a hostile intelligence service to snake its way deep into Downing Street's email servers. The aide was 'informally reprimanded.'"
Had it been a slashdotter... (Score:5, Funny)
Would he have reported the loss of his virginity?
Re:Had it been a slashdotter... (Score:4, Funny)
If you can lose a blackberry... (Score:5, Funny)
Ew, if you could lose a blackberry in that
Chinese Honeypot, I wouldn't stick around.
-AI
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Use your Blackberry's light to find our way out?
Hell, let's use your Blackberry's light to find my keys, and we'll drive our way out.
Re:If you can lose a blackberry... (Score:5, Informative)
There's no such thing as a BlackBerry without encryption. All data to and from a BlackBerry is TripleDES or AES encrypted, regardless if you're on a BES or using your carrier webmail.
If he's on a BES the problem is non-existent, the Admin can remotely wipe the BlackBerry with a single command.
Plus, if someone enters the password wrong ten times, the device wipes itself
The only security issue here is if the guy used a really easy password. And even that can be avoided because the admin can specify password complexity so users can't enter stuf like, '1234'
Re:If you can lose a blackberry... (Score:5, Interesting)
If he's on a BES the problem is non-existent, the Admin can remotely wipe the BlackBerry with a single command.
Unless whoever stole the BlackBerry has put it inside a metal box, or taken it to a sub-basement, or done anything else to block it from receiving a signal.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll admit straight up to never having touched a Blackberry except with my pint glass, to move it along the bar and make room for something else. I didn't need to read the manual to do that. But I doubt that this statement can possibly be correct without some additional specifications.
As-written, it would appear that an Admin, presumably somewhere in the world, can wipe a Blackberry by (typing?) a
Re:If you can lose a blackberry... (Score:5, Insightful)
'are you saying that everything on a Blackberry's drive is encrypted and therefore unretrievable if the password is lost?'
Yes, it is.
Individuals might have a blackberry with no encryption, and a weak password.
Anyone - like this guy - with a corporate blackberry will have an encrypted device and compulsory (annoying to the user - useful in this case) constant password checking and strong(ish) password policy enforcement.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For me, once I report my pda lost, the boys in corp will send a command to wipe the contents of the phone and remove all settings. I believe this option also exists for blackberry.
Won't do any good if whoever grabs the pda/blackberry immediately puts it in a shielded bag and thereafter any work on it is done in a shielded room (Faraday cage). If it's an organized intelligence operation doing this, you can bet that that's exactly what they'll do.
Better would be to add a deadman switch in the pda, which sel
Physical Access... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention...
The remote nuke option.
For me, once I report my pda lost, the boys in corp will send a command to wipe the contents of the phone and remove all settings. I believe this option also exists for blackberry.
As well initiate the self destruct code on the small thermonuclear charge.
As others stated, disabling its ability to receive said kill signal is not difficult. Past that, the other barriers to gaining the data on the device can probably be circumvented as well. 10 password fails wipes the device? They probably wont bother trying a single one on the device itself, if this is truly an organized attempt. Rather they would probably crack it open and copy the contents of its memory directly from the pins of the chips themselves, and then work from that copy. Remember, once physical access is obtained, you can bypass any software deterrences and most hardware ones as well.
Tm
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Hey Mr Bond...
Is that a Blackberry in your pocket or are you excited to see me?
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Would he have reported the loss of his virginity?
No, the Chinese media would have misreported it and made it into a sex scandal.
"Gordon Brown aide loses blackberry"
will be translated in Engrish as
"Gordon blown, has aids, loses cherry".
What they aren't telling us (Score:4, Funny)
They aren't telling us that Scotland Yard did this deliberately just to see how the Chinese would react.
What the Chinese aren't telling us is they knew this was a trap and reacted accordingly.
What Scotland Yard also isn't telling us is that they knew the Chinese would see the trap and were counting on them to react accordingly.
What the Chinese also aren't telling us ....
oooh my head hurts.
Re:What they aren't telling us (Score:5, Funny)
oooh my head hurts.
which was part of the plan all along.
certs connection? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was just posting in the article about ways of making certs work, and I see this.
Am I the only one who sees a connection between this and the problems we have getting certificates to actually mean what they are supposed to mean?
Actually, I see several connections.
Does PM Brown have any open positions? (Score:5, Funny)
I promise not to carry anything sensitive, and I'll distract the attractive Chinese women for him so his secrets will remain safe!
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't work out. The communist reversal would require me to distract attractive women in capitalist america.
Well, that happened when I was tossed out drunk at a party without my pants on, but that's a COMPLETELY different story!
Honeytrap? Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Honeytrap"? Bullshit. What leads anyone to think it was anymore than the guy lost in in a taxi, or if the girl did take it, she sold it on to a second hand phone dealer for a few dollars.
I think if it was really a "vast Communist conspiracy" as the article implies, the agents would have copied the data from the phone and returned it later in the evening, leaving him none the wiser.
Much more important to consider is if the guy used the phone while he was in Beijing, there is an excellent chance that every keystroke, including passwords, was captured en route.
Re:Honeytrap? Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
intelligence gathering doesn't have to be subtle to be effective.
whether or not his phone ended up in the hands of a foreign service he was foolish to have it stolen so obviously.
Re:Honeytrap? Proof? (Score:5, Interesting)
you may be right, but as someone living in Beijing I can tell you that if you ever leave your bike or phone unguarded for one minute, there's a strong chance it will be gone the next time you look for it....
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i just meant to say that as an aide to the PM he may not have been able to keep his penis out of the hands of the chinese but he could've been a bit more careful with government property.
he was only informally reprimanded so we're not discussing whether he should get his job back.
Re:Honeytrap? Proof? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, he should have just kept it in his own hands.
Re:Honeytrap? Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The parent hit the nail squarely on the end. If they had stolen his passwords and returned the device then they would have had access to his official email without him being any the wiser. Then they could have gathered intelligence on anything he had access to for the foreseeable future.
Stealing the device would just make Downing Street close the account and issue him a fresh one. Intelligence gathering does have to be subtle to be effective.
Because it sells (Score:5, Insightful)
"News" have long ago lost any purpose of informing, assume it ever has that in the beginning. Nowadays, "news" is just baits used to catch your attention to advertisers, who are the real customer of any "news" organization, be it newspaper, TV or web site.
Which headline do you think catches more attention (thus earn more profit)? "Some guy lost his Blackberry?" or "Chinese spys strikes again"?
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If you can read between the lines, the spy story is to cover up for the fact that someone found out that the aide's phone was stolen by a Chinese prostitute he bought back to his room. This is more about arse-covering than scare scaremongering, they are just trying to distract people from the fact that this guy was stupid enough to leave his phone lying about whilst h
Re:Honeytrap? Proof? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Occams Razor. In the UK, the New Labour Regime has a substantial history of losing important documents in large numbers. The Party and its employees are not generally known for their intelligence (as in brains, not spying). He's also British, thus at night he's most certainly drunk.
Q.E.D. He lost the Blackberry. He then lied to make himself seem like a more glamorous victim.
Most probably he's just a drunken, incompetent, liar. Like most everyone else in his Party.
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Whereas the Tories will no doubt be a shining beacon of moral rectitude when they finally claw their way back into power?
What a load of crap; I detest this partisan bollocks. Politicians of all colours are for the most part honest with a lot of dissembling forced upon them by the spin that the media will put upon any straight and honest answers that they give.
There are bad apples (just as an example a Tory cabinet minister [wikipedia.org] went to prison for perjuring himself in a libel action) but this "oh the government i
Govt fault, not the aide (Score:5, Insightful)
The fault has to lie with the government and not the aide.
This comes down to just bad security governance, even my blackberry is encrypted and our BES servers enforce security down to the handset so that you can't install any unauthorised applications.
These devices of course are prone to loss, and given the confidential information potentially held on these devices should be reason enough to enforce the appropriate security measures on the devices.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly my thought.
I was doing IT security for a financial institution for a while. One of the first things I put my foot down about was the treatment of notebooks (it was the time before Blackberry). The doctrine was that every notebook had to treat its user as an "enemy" until the user identified himself. I spent a good deal of my time trying to hack those notebooks, and every success meant a change in protocol, in two cases it meant a complete change in hardware.
Security was paramount. I wonder why our g
And the cover up (Score:4, Funny)
The woman was not really attractive, he was just desperate.
Seriously, is the woman's attractiveness really pertinent to what happened, and was her attractiveness fact-checked? Or is "attractive Shanghai woman" a British idiom for "prostitute"?
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Maybe she came into the club as a 2, and he drank her up to an 8.
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Yes, her attractiveness is pertinent, along with her bra size. Also, if she shaved it clean.
And, you are gay.
Carry on.
Oh no! (Score:3, Funny)
Brown trouser time!
So the article is trouser snake meets honeypot - but it's a trap! Snap! Ow, Blackberries.
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Well, it makes a change from Brown Shirt time. Something Gordon is trying to develop at the expense of the freedom of the UK.
passwords? (Score:5, Insightful)
likely enough information on board for a hostile intelligence service to snake its way deep into Downing Street's email servers.
So, in addition to stupid aides that fall for Chinese spy-whores, the British government is incapable of changing the passwords on its mail servers?
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*cough* (Score:2)
Re:passwords? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see:
You are a chinese honeytrap now in possession of an aide's blackberry. It is 1am. The aide has passed out drunk three steps inside the front door of his flat, and won't be in any fit capacity until about 8am, when he realises his blackberry is missing and goes looking for it. The IT boys cancel his password at 9am.
That gives you 8 hours to:
- Read all his recent email, for starters. If they're doing IMAP, then god knows how many personal IMAP folders there are to browse through on the server. Look for the good folders like "Foreign Policy". "Sent Items" and "Drafts" can also be fascinating.
- Get his contact list, recent callers,etc, allowing you to analyse and see where this particular cog fits in the Government Machine. If he turns out to be a well-connected individual, it might pay in the future to keep an eye on him. If he's not well-connected, that's one more person you cross off the list.
- Possibly fire off a few trojans to a few "inside" email accounts on that list, who might accept them from a known,"trusted" source. Doesn't hurt to try something like "Revision to yesterday's document -- URGENT".
So you see, there's plenty of scope for mischief.
Re:passwords? (Score:5, Insightful)
The final logical step of course, would be to put it back where you found it before he wakes up. Now that would be far better "spying" than just nicking the thing. So maybe it was just stolen.
Counter-arguments would be that if a woman was going to seduce a guy just to steal from him, you'd have seen more things go missing than just a blackberry. And even if the "spy" did want to take the blackberry, stealing other things as a cover would be better. This story is either incomplete or there is some inept work being done here.
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You know what's scary about your argument? How many Blackberries were really used for spying and nobody noticed?
What if this was an incomplete espionage ploy? Where they routinely steal the BBs, investigate their contents and return them, but this time she couldn't return it in time, maybe because she was robbed herself, or got hit by a car, or some other reason why she couldn't get back in time to cover it up?
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So you see, there's plenty of scope for mischief.
If that happens, people can easily tell from the log files. Based on what the British government actually said, none of that seems to have happened, which means that it comes down to changing the password.
In fact, I doubt that any of what you say was actually likely. Blackberries generally aren't used as direct IMAP clients and probably don't even have the IMAP password stored.
Most likely, the only exposure of this was likely recent E-mails and some contact
Here's how they knew it was a honeytrap operation: (Score:5, Funny)
They know what the aide looks like.
ba-dump *tsssh*!
What was not reported..... (Score:2, Funny)
Aide?? - Sebastian? (Score:4, Funny)
Let me get this straight. (Score:5, Funny)
His Blackberry got shanghaied [wikipedia.org] in Shanghai?
He forgot to secure the client-side (Score:5, Funny)
Tsktsk.
He should get instructions on how to safely do Penetration Testing of the Chinese secret service. Clearly he forgot to secure the client side properly. Except for that, the article is a tad vague on whether the testing itself went smoothly and he found some holes.
*Ahem*
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thinking a little bit more about it, I also hope he remembered to use a proper firewall/virus scanner to prevent malware infections. The article also forgets to mention whether he has signed a non-compete agreement when it comes to Penetration Testing - in case he might lose his current contract, for a one night consulting-job.
Greenhorn (Score:2)
You Gotta Be Kidding (Score:2)
Seems this was a run-of-the-mill BlackBerry without any encryption, only a simple password lock.
This is the best IT security the UK PM's office can manage? They have staff in a foreign countries and let them walk around with sensitive information on a low security device? Come on. It wasn't the aides fault if their InfoSec policy is that weak. And it doesn't matter how he lost his Blackberry. Would have been just as easy to arrange a minor accident and have the emergency responders lift it off him d
Sweet! (Score:2)
Foreign governments will hire hot chicks to do you just for a Blackberry? If I was a target, I'd get myself of whole box of fake Blackberries and go around pretending to use them at discos. At least until my agency sprung for counter-espionage fake Blackberries that *looked* like they had encrypted state secrets on them, but were really just surveillance devices so they could GPS exactly where they wound up, and eaves-drop on their decryption techniques.
Unfortunately, no government cares enough about what's
Stolen by a prostitute, not agent. (Score:2, Insightful)
Prostitutes do still phones and cash. WHat makes them think that it was an agent?
Certainly it would give them a selfrespect and a feeling of selfimportance.
But what really happened is that a hooker has got a blackberry stolen from a drunkard.
Subject (Score:3, Funny)
"The aide was 'informally reprimanded.'"
Translation: "Dammit, Nigel, keep it in your bloody shorts next time!"
If this had happened in USSR (Score:2)
... the KGB or better yet, the NKVD would have shamed Gitmo...
Hmmmm i miss the old times, when it was just KGB agents trying to steal our secrets and CIA stealing KGB secrets... now we have to deal with this whole crap of different entities.
The UK is a security joke (Score:3, Interesting)
It's no surprise that this has happened to a high ranking UK official. The state of security in the United Kingdom is absolutely pathetic nowadays, and the country deserves to be laughed at. Before we go on, yes, I'm British.
Barely a week seems to go by without a story of confidential government (or secret service) files being left on a train, on a laptop on a train, or what not. Think I'm joking? Google for "uk lost files train" [google.co.uk] to see a plethora of stories.
For more, try a search for UK lost data [google.co.uk]. This includes November 2007's leak of 25 million people's bank details [wikipedia.org], national insurance numbers (like an SSN in the US), name, birthday and address. How about December 2007's story of the DVA losing the details [bbc.co.uk] of 6000 drivers?
The British government is a fucking shambles when it comes to anything relating to IT (what about the £20bn wasted on an NHS computer system [telegraph.co.uk] that barely works - with a reported 110 "major incidents" in 2006) or the secure management of data.
In the UK, any data stored by the government (which includes most of your personal information) is extremely unsafe and should be assumed to be public knowledge.
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think the UK/US is any different?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look up Echelon. You can't make an international phone call without the bastards snooping in on it. Our Lords and Masters have no understanding of what "privacy" means.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Our Lords and Masters have no understanding of what "privacy" means.
Funny, they feel the same way about you. "Those silly citizens have no idea what the word 'privacy' means anymore. Like it's something that we can't snoop into."
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily, some of us do know what it means these days — privacy means two very large prime numbers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"According to conspiracy theorists..." ...who have since been demonstrated to be correct. Echelon's massive capability has been widely, if quietly, known for some time.
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Wikipedia (or more accurately, its sources) contradict that [wikipedia.org].
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
The level of espionage out of China is pretty ridiculous. I wonder how long this goes on before the trade advantage of dealing with them is over weighed by their rampant spying.
I don't know what country you are from, but I can almost be sure that your country is making the same efforts against other countries.
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Funny)
My country doesn't have the attractive women, frankly. I'm Canadian.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Informative)
My country doesn't have the attractive women, frankly. I'm Canadian.
There, fixed that for you.
I just moved to downtown Toronto. I can assure you that you're wrong. Although perhaps we're stockpiling them.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm glad to be wrong, for your sake. Links to pics build Karma, so I'm told :)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Shut up you hoser! They will find out about our stockpiles of attractive WMDs (women of mass distraction) and our plans to release hordes of them to achieve world domination.
Oh, wait, aren't the Blackberry servers already in Canada? Maybe we'll just keep those stockpiles...
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My country doesn't have an entertainment industry actively advertising the existence of its spy agency, frankly. I'm Canadian.
There, fixed it for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Security_Intelligence_Service [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As a Canadian citizen (I have the papers to prove it) our Queen is Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, the Queen of Canada.
As a British subject (I have the papers to prove it) our Queen is Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, the Queen of England.
She also happens to be the Queen of quite a few other places as well.
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Informative)
(the case that comes to mind was a German firm that developed a new jet engine, and "coincidentally" Boeing managed to develop a nearly identical jet engine in a fraction of the time).
Boeing doesn't develop jet engines, it never has - its an airframe manufacturer, every jet engined aircraft it has developed has used a third party engine. I can't for the life of me think what 'new jet engine' you could possibly be talking about either.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Members of the British Government will now be expecting an increased amount of spam and unsolicited phone salesmen calling to offer V1agra and other products.
Will that be because of the data inside the phone or because of the chinese lady's detailed report?
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Don't mix up "spying" with "copying" and "copyright infringement". For businesses the second and third are more of a direct problem than the first; especially when looking at China. The spying part is probably not seriously worse in China than in other parts of the developed world. It's just that they may be not as good at hiding it.
That said, it is not mentioned in tfs (and of course I did not rtfa) whether this girl was targeting him for being an important government official, or just for being a rich we
Re:This seems to be a recurring problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not good at it, or not caring?
Our espionage agencies have to keep up the front of being the "good guy". We don't spy. We only have those spies to protect us from other spies, you know? Our secret agents are only good and shining examples, they don't steal information or conduct covert operations to kill someone, and if they do, we first of all make sure that whoever they want dead is so long slandered and labeled terrorist, communist or whatever the boogeyman of the day so people nod their heads and agree that this man is better dead.
China has no such problems. The people there know that they better not question the actions of their government. Oh, you mean international prestige? Ok, hate me. I'm the one building your crap for cheap, want to do business without me? Can your economy survive without me? So whether you hate me or not, you will continue to do business with me, do I care what you think of me?
Re: (Score:2)
If trading with China means being afflicted with "rampant spying", sign me up!
Re:How foolish (Score:5, Informative)
China is basically using Capitalism as their weapon by fixing the Yuen to the Dollar.
2005 just called, they want their now-outdated [cnn.com] analysis back
Your data seem to contradict yourself (Score:3, Informative)
Also the Dollar to Euro rate decreased by about 30 percent (and not 60).
Now, those are just rough calculations and IANASoros - so correct me if i'm wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
So basically, what you're saying is that the yuan is fixed to other currencies, but that no matter how you cut the data it's not consistent with that claim, i.e. "no formula can be found"? In other words facts don't back your claim that the currency is fixed.. Are you sure that logic was calling for *me*?
Also, there's no flaw with my logic, there's no logic, only one undeniable fact that the yuan hasn't been fixed to the dollar since 2005. And the data you pointed to confirms it. So basically your post was
Re: (Score:2)
This graph (EURCNY/USDCNY/USDEUR all in one) [yahoo.com] is much easier to read. But I'm not sure what you're point is. You're saying that the USD is falling against the yuan and keeping not badly inline with the euro. If we assume that the euro is a reasonable baseline then it makes it look like the yuan ... well, it's not floating but it is doing a very nice smoothing of it. (Looks much neater than the behavior of the USD or the euro doesn't it? Because quality-control's exactly what China's known for.)
Re:How foolish (Score:4, Interesting)
Only a fool would think that an attractive chinese women in chinese disco is going to go to bed the first night with a westerner.
You've clearly never been to Asia. Rest assured you can see many examples of exactly this happening all over Asia.
Now send in 007 to get that Blackberry!
Re:How foolish (Score:5, Funny)
You've clearly never been to Asia. Rest assured you can see many examples of exactly this happening all over Asia
And so begins the great stampede of slashdot readers heading for asia.. ;)
More precisely (Score:3, Insightful)
"Only a fool would think that an attractive chinese women in chinese disco is not going to go to bed the first night with a westerner.
Re:technology savvy should be a job requirement (Score:5, Funny)
Of course. Then the aide will be so busy playing with his blackberry that he won't notice the attractive woman. Of course if he did notice her he'd still be too shy to talk to her.
I like your plan; it's sound.
Re:technology savvy should be a job requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
I think your delivery was too subtle. Slashdot's audience is so broadly distributed that the only universal humor left in brevity is a fart joke.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true -- at least China doesn't have 5 million security cameras. Which is the free country again?
Re: (Score:2)
I strongly suspect they do have that many....but they're a lot bigger than the UK, which I assumed you're referring to.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true -- at least China doesn't have 5 million security cameras. Which is the free country again?
Do you need 5 million security cameras when you can rely on good old-fashioned human intelligence?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They're working on it. [telegraph.co.uk] And they're openly trying to go a heck of a lot further than anyone in the West.
Given just the two choices, I think I'll go for the democratic surveillance society with strongly protected freedoms, rather than the one-party surveillance society where citizens don't even have basic rights like freedom of speech, assembly, and religion.
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Sure, but that doesn't explain the kind of fear exhibited by people here, IMO.
Is it really only just because they're such a serious competitor? Is this the first time that the US dominance in these areas has been seriously challenged?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Every country does that, and yet some manage to still consider other countries friendly.
Anyway, in the case of the usa, I severly doubt it would make any difference at all. The usa seems to be stuck in this anti-communism era, even though China has little to do with that any more. With the USSR gone, the usa has few left to demonise, so China is the obvious target.
Still, not everyone on /. is from the usa, and yet these adsurd articles keep getting posted.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, the Chinese will just block Slashdot like they did SourceForge [slashdot.org].
I can read both here in the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
...and I can read both here in Finland.
What's your point? ...a relevant one, I mean. Blocking web sites doesn't justify this kind of fear, IMO.
Re: (Score:2)
Face facts: there are bigger assholes in the world than Americans... namely the Chinese.
But I gotta admit: the Chinese spying techniques "blow" the US methods away.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hungover aide comes in: "It may look like I got drunk, shagged some girl I just met and lost the Blackberry - but really I am the honest victim of an intelligence operation of such genius and cunning that it could happen to anyone".