Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries

Posted by Kendall Harmon

A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.

In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.

The researchers, who are based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Globalization • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations

5 Comments
Posted March 28, 2009 at 3:45 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. A Senior Priest wrote:

Of course the Chinese government is the author and begetter of this spying project. No one will do anything about this or any of their other innumerable outrages past, present, or future because Western governments are too busy kowtowing to them and the Developing World is too eager to be bought off. Psalm 37, however, is reassuring, not only verse seven wherein we are told to put our trust in the Lord, but also verse 13, “The Lord laughs at the wicked, for He knows their time will come.”

March 28, 5:52 pm | [comment link]
2. Michael D wrote:

Good for Munk for tracking this down.  It certainly sounds like it might be China, particularly given the geographic distribution, but my eyebrows rose on the line In a puzzling security lapse, the Web page that Mr. Villeneuve found was not protected by a password…   which sounds suspicious.  It may well be that was a trap within a trap.  I would guess that the Munksters are very hip to that possibility, however.

March 28, 6:29 pm | [comment link]
3. Bob Maxwell+ wrote:

Michael D, I had the same thought about the “trap within the trap.” I also realized it might be the work of a saboteur making sure that it would be discovered.

March 28, 7:24 pm | [comment link]
4. A Senior Priest wrote:

One hopes they were discovered by a turncoat. May God raise up more of such people.

March 28, 7:50 pm | [comment link]
5. Harvey wrote:

Does this mean we might have to go back to paper and paper and if need be, memorization??  I refuse to speak of private matters on any internet blog.

March 29, 9:41 am | [comment link]
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