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It's quite interesting that the term "hackers" was often deemed negative. However, in this following article, the discussion of "White hat" hackers vs. "Black hat" introduces the idea that cyber security/cyber espionage in the online world can also be saved by the same breed that seek to do criminal activies. These white hat hackers were able to uncover a Chinese-based espionage ring that had been gleaning sensitive information: visa applications. People no longer simply hold posters chanting and marching against the "man," rather, they stick it to them, by strengthening the masses in the online world.

Worth checking out - Villeneuve works for the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab (http://citizenlab.org/) as a 'white hat' hacker who focuses on government censorship and espionage. Thanks to Elizabeth Gan for posting the Toronto Star article (http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/791274--hackers-not-just-geeks-but-activists) where I found reference to this guy.

My third blog post regarding online safety of victims of black hat hackers.

This article is criticizing the attack lunched by Anonymous. It said, the any protest against the Mandatory ISP filtering plan is encouraged, however, the bring down government website is an illegal way to make political statement, and will render the protest null and avoid. Instead, even the anti-censorship community advocate legal way to protest the Mandatory censorship. In my opinion, this attack is interesting, although it is illegal, it doesn't cause big cost, just threw little troubles to government website, it can be considered as a prank, not a crime. Anyway, no one can be convicted, as it is an anonymous attack by hacker, lol.:)

This article is about an intresting hacker attack to the government portal website. The orgnazion Anounymous laughed this attack to express their protest of the forthcoming Mandatory ISP filtering plan. Several government site are down at February 10th 2010 morning. The alleged principle of Anounymous is to fight against the threaten of internet freedom.

Most hacking activities are not reported by the websites that are victim to it, most probably so as not to scare the public. In this article, filmmaker Phillip Mora looks at the activities of hackers and cyber terrorists, likening the potentialities to the Holocaust and 9/11.

Censorhip is Chinea is taking to another lever? Some journalists' email account in Yahoo is hacked; though the result remain unclear, but it may imply the "freedom" in China is somehow lost.

This article (posted yesterday) is about the announcement of a huge China-based cyber espionage which stole thousands of documents - including classified information, visa applications, and personal identities - from "politically sensitive targets" around the world using platforms such as Twitter, Google Groups, Blogspot, Baidu Blogs, blog.com and Yahoo Mail to maintain persistent control of infected computers. Among the targets: the offices of the Dalai Lama, the United Nations as well as Indian and Pakistani government officials. Also available in this article, a report document of 58 pages about "Investigating Cyber Espionnage" (scribd application)

"Information wants to be free" (IWTBF hereafter) is half of Stewart Brand's famous aphorism, first uttered at the Hackers Conference in Marin County, California (where else?), in 1984: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."

Google announced to use SSL to secure user's data, keep it hard for hackers and government to spy on users' searches.

Increasing "probes" on US military networks has led to the appointment of a senior general to Cyber Command operations and approximately 30,000 troops have been re-assigned from IT support to "the frontlines of cyberwarfare". The US is increasingly anxious about the vulnerability of its networks to attack. Chinese, Russian and Korean hackers have been targeted as alleged attackers so far. There is concern that cyberwarfare techniques being used by the US are outpacing the ability to develop policy surrounding their use.

Google speaks out on censorship and the violation of user privacy in China. Yahoo in the US agrees but its Chinese partner Alibaba Group does not. Are they afraid of a backlash from Beijing and fear for their ungoing business success? Makes me wonder how bad the quagmire in China really is...

The Pentagon receives thousands of attempts to from hackers/crackers to access their defense computers. They are deciding to fight fire with fire and train their employees to understand hacking so they can be prepared. Sounds like a good idea, just maybe one they should have had years ago...

Google blames Chinese-backed groups for attacking blogs of political critics. But who can stop this actions, who has the power to, within the current legal framework, do so?

This is a story not so much about hackers bringing down an organisation's network, but about a virus software breaking down and attacking its own operating system. Just thought it would be interesting to share a story about what could go wrong even when you're trying to protect yourself against viruses. In this case, Coles was affected, with point of sale terminals shutting down as a result of the software bug.