Late last fall, Detective Chris Hsiung of the Mountain View, Calif., police department began investigating a suspicious pattern of surveillance against Silicon Valley computers. From the Middle East and South Asia, unknown browsers were exploring the digital systems used to manage Bay Area utilities and government offices. Hsiung, a specialist in high-technology crime, alerted the FBI's San Francisco computer intrusion squad.Working with experts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the FBI traced back trails of a broader reconnaissance. A forensic summary of the investigation, prepared in the Defense Department, said the bureau found "multiple casings of sites" nationwide. Routed through telecommunications switches in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Pakistan, the visitors studied emergency telephone systems, electrical generation and transmission, water storage and distribution, nuclear power plants and gas facilities. Uh-oh..
Maybe not so uh-oh. Isn't the Net a two-way street? Can't we "study" all those systems in Saudi, Paki, and Axis of Evil countries pretty easily? What do you want to bet we already have?
A couple of years ago, World Net Daily reported on a group of hackers, Hong Kong Blonds, who had hacked into Beijing's computers and loused up the Red Army in some pretty interesting and effective ways. So it's being done. Author of articles on Hong Kong Blonds was Anthhony lo Biado (Portuguese name), if you want to look them up.
One little cyber attack, and the USA could retaliate in kind, blowing several nasty little countries off the map altogether. (If they're sophisticated enough to have vital services run by computers.)