Further Misadventures in Hacking

It gets curioser and curioser: New Zealand is the latest country to report that 'foreign' governments have been trying to hack into/infiltrate/penetrate their intelligence bureau's computers, and succeeded in many instances.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4197227a10.html

While they do not directly name the country/countries, the suspects look very much like China and/or Russia. China has been accused many times (under veiled references) of the same crime by the US, UK, and Germany. However, none of this really made any headlines here in the US much, sadly.

But one thing that should catch one's eyes is a recent report that a couple of hackers (allegedly sponsored by the military) in China have devised devious plans on how to counter US air carriers (sabotage them). One can see why this may be the case: US can only reach China (and vice-versa) using ICBMs, or if they were to go at each other via Taiwan, the hapless little mouse caught in between the subtly warring elephants, via the existing launch sites. Every time of them makes threatening noises, I'm sure the little mouse makes multiple bathroom trips.

The key to this seems to be diplomacy to some extent, but probably coupled with other tactics such as strong protests, sanctions, trade restrictions, higher import taxes, and restricted protectionism.
One must remember that no country lives in a vacuum (unless you're North Korea, and even then you need to depend on someone - like South Korea), and therefore any strong or semi-strong steps will have at least some repercussions (stronger steps = stronger blowbacks).

China holds a huge amount of our treasury bills; and even a rumored attempt at getting rid of them would decimate the US economy. But that'd also affect China directly where it hurts. Her people would rebel out of hunger and shortages caused by the sanctions and other acts, which is what the Republic wants least. And therefore because these two mistrustful global leaders have decided to bond in this very uncomfortable relationship of business partners, a give-and-take deal MUST exist.

No amount of sabre-rattling is going to resolve this; and no amount of weapons-pointing at each other will make things better (there can't be a war since neither China and USA - nor the world - can afford one), but such actions do send a very bad message to people around the globe that want to see stability from the superpower(s) - desperately. Not to mention the impact on the world economy, which is not in the best of shapes.

None of this means that such despicable acts allegedly sponsored by the Chinese govt should be ignored - to the contrary the US govt owes its citizens at least this much: A strong protest to the leaders of China mingled with no-nonsense steps that the US would be forced to undertake if such actions were not stopped immediately - AND PERMANENTLY, unless in a state of war, when no such rules will apply or be followed/obeyed.

With the Olympics coming soon, let's hope China is forced to clean up its act - at least for the time being. Stopping its taxi drivers from spitting on passers-by and passengers is not enough - it should stop its out-of-control military personnel from trying to spit at people across the blue.

Be safe!
Sesh