US Justice Dept charges Chinese army members with hacking

[Offensive Threat]

Didnt see a topic on this yet From BBC.com:

The US has charged five Chinese army officers with hacking into private-sector American companies in a bid for competitive advantage, in the first cyber-espionage case of its kind.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the alleged breaches were "significant" and demanded "an aggressive response".

US prosecutors say the officers stole trade secrets and internal documents from five companies and a labour union.

China denied the charges and warned the case would harm US-China relations.

Potentially more victims

In Washington on Monday, Mr Holder said a grand jury had laid hacking charges against the Chinese nationals, the first against "known state actors for infiltrating US commercial targets by cyber means".

He identified the alleged victims as Westinghouse Electric, US Steel, Alcoa Inc, Allegheny Technologies, SolarWorld and the US Steelworkers Union.

"The alleged hacking appears to have been conducted for no reason other than to advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China, at the expense of businesses here in the United States," Mr Holder said.

He said the US government rejected economic espionage as a trade tactic.

"As President Obama has said on numerous occasions, we do not collect intelligence to provide a competitive advantage to US companies, or US commercial sectors," Mr Holder said.

Read the full story here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27475324

So, after many years of knowing the Chinese Gov was stealing information from US companies finally they did something about it. The Chinese response of "this is all ludicrous" blustering is actually quite comical. The Justice Dept is starting to flex its muscle internationally on a large scale now. They just finished negotiations last week in charges against Credit Suisse (Switzerlands largest bank) to fine them $2.6 BILLION US dollars for helping US citizens evade taxes and are working on a deal to avoid charges against over 100 other Swiss banks in exchange for them disclosing who and how they helped US citizens hide assets over the years.

[Ghostsof1915]

Good luck with that.

[Offensive Threat]

Good luck with that.

The idea isnt to actually get the soldiers in front of a court in New York and try them. Its to get China to back off of the large scale hacking it does all day every day.

EDIT: Also its a wake up call to US corporations and the military to increase their cyber security after information on the actual massive amounts of information being stolen has been revealed.

[CanadianLoonie]

But when the NSA and the rest of the ECHELON network intercepts foreign corporate traffic, it's legit when they do it?

Bloody double-standard...

[Heretic]

Push the red button Jim.

[DarthNinja]

The Chinese spying was only "significant". They should learn from the Zionists and ram,p-up their spying to "alarming and terrifying", then deny it, refer to it as "lies and fabrications" and nobody will get charged and the story will simply fade away into the dust.

[RUPERTKBD]

...and an hour later, they charged them again...