An Army of Hackers

By Brad

Hot on the heels of a recent Wall Street Journal report about hackers breaching a U.S. military fighter-jet project comes this chilling article from Popular Science on the rise of Chinese hackers and their targeting of America:

Hackers are pervasive, their imprint inescapable. There are hacker magazines, hacker clubs and hacker online serials. A 2005 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences survey equates hackers and rock stars, with nearly 43 percent of elementary-school students saying they “adore” China’s hackers. One third say they want to be one. This culture thrives on a viral, Internet-driven nationalism. The post-Tiananmen generation has known little hardship, so rather than pushing for democracy, many young people define themselves in opposition to the West. China’s Internet patriots, who call themselves “red hackers,” may not be acting on direct behalf of their government, but the effect is much the same.

The entire piece is worth digging into.