US To Charge Chinese Military Employees With Hacking 225
jfruh (300774) writes "The U.S. federal government will announce today indictments of several employees of the Chinese military with hacking into computers to steal industrial secrets. The indictments will be the first of their kind against employees of a foreign government. Among the trade secrets allegedly stolen by the accused are information about a nuclear power plant design and a solar panel company's cost and pricing data."
Vs the NSA (Score:5, Informative)
Which just steals secrets from the states, vs corporate secrets and giving them to GM, Apple, General Electric, etc.
Interesting Strategy (Score:5, Informative)
Surely they're not going to get any cooperation from the Chinese government on this, but by naming these individuals, they could be limiting the future career choices of those individuals. Want to work at a foreign compa ny? might be tough. Want to travel to the US or country that has extradition with the US? Better think twice about that. Even if you want to work at a local Chinese company, you might not be able to command as high of a salary if you can't get competing offers from foreign companies. A high percentage of well moneyed and educated individuals in China have plans to emigrate to foreign countries with the growing pains China has on the horizon, and some talented folks might be dissuaded from this career path. How this will play out in the real world is hard to say, but If the US didn't think it would have some effect, I don't think they'd do it.
Re:Jurisdiction (Score:4, Informative)
The US govt doesn't know the meaning of the word. Sovereignty's another.
Neither does the EU or probably most if not all other countries in the world. Did you know that France makes Ebay restrict certain listings on every Ebay site in the world, not just the French Ebay site, so that French citizens are theoretically prevented (by IP address) from (gasp!) seeing them? Italy has also tried to enforce its law beyond its national borders. Spain went so far as to try people from crimes committed in Latin America that had nothing to do with Spanish citizens. Austria put a Holocaust denier in jail for a while for statements he made in the UK, not Austria. Once he came to Austria they simply nabbed him and charged them under their anti-Nazi laws for something that didn't even happen on Austrian soil. So spare me the usual US bashing.
Dave Aitel (CEO Immunity, Inc.) says it best (Score:4, Informative)
@daveaitel [twitter.com] All espionage is illegal in the country you do it against.
And since everyone in the world in any country, especially banks [irs.gov] (under FACTA) and foreign officials are under US jurisdiction, why not indict?