U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers, officials and industry experts told The Associated Press.
I'd be pleased if we pulled off something like this, so I can hardly complain too much about the Chinese. I can be upset we let them get away with this:
Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez's trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident told the AP.
I'm sorry, we what? We left a laptop unattended in China?
Good grief. I'm sure our security people have a technical term for this type of mistake. It's probably called something like "what those idiots usually do." But I'm guessing.
Apparently, the Chinese didn't actually penetrate Commerce computers, but they tried.
But this is a reminder that cyber warfare isn't all about long-distance penetration atempts. It involves real world idiots leaving real world computers lying around for real world spies to copy.
So, a hearty "bravo" to the Chinese.
