AP Google was the target of a cyber attack by China
This is not an isolated incident, according to the report.
China has made repeated and oftentimes successful cyber attacks on the U.S. government, private enterprises and Western allies as far back as 2002, The Times cited the cables as saying
One cable, sent earlier this year, said, "A well-placed contact claims that the Chinese government coordinated the recent intrusions of Google systems. According to our contact, the closely held operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee level," according to The Times.
The cable quoted the contact as saying Google's attack was “coordinated out of the State Council Information Office with the oversight" by Li Changchun and Zhou Yongkang, two members of the Communist Party's Politburo, according to The Times. It report said Zhou is China's top security official.
The contact cited in the cable, a “Chinese person with family connections to the elite,” denied knowing who orchestrated the hacking, according to The Times.
The person told The Times that it was one of Chanchun’s subordinates, and the two officials gave the plan the green light, but was unsure if the leaders directed the hacking.
The Times reported that it remains unclear how the cyber attacks were implemented, and did not explain the inconsistency between what the person said in the interview and what was attributed to the person in the cable. "The cables also appear to contain some suppositions by Chinese and Americans passed along by diplomats," The Times reported.
Earlier this year, China and Google locked horns over censorship, but the dispute was settled in July when Google slightly altered the way it directs users to search engines.
At least one unreported cyber attack conducted two years ago yielded more than 50 megabytes of usernames, emails and passwords from a U.S. government agency, according to The Times.
by Fox News December 4, 2010
Chinese Officials Behind Google Hacking - FoxNews.com
