KEY POINTS:
The Security Intelligence Service's claims that foreign governments are hacking its network aren't surprising given the stir created in the last couple of weeks at news that the Chinese People's Liberation Army allegedly hacked the Pentagon's network.
Britain's intelligence service claims China is increasingly resorting to electronic hacking to
gather intelligence.
And while President Bush suggested when he was in Sydney for APEC that he might bring up the hacking issue with the Chinese, he clearly doesn't want to enter that diplomatic minefield just yet.
But where New Zealand is concerned, what exactly are we talking about? Targeted attacks aimed at uncovering sensitive Government information or electronic fishing trips to see what can be turned up in general?
China, with its legions of unsecured Windows PCs, has always been a staging ground for things like denial of service attacks. Could state-sanctioned electronic fishing trips be hiding behind these seemingly random attacks from PCs that have been hijacked?
Or are the alleged attacks from China more likely to be examples of "patriotic hacking" - computer geeks with a love for their homeland, sniffing around the Government networks of Western powers to see if they can find anything worth giving to the Government to curry favour with the Party - or make a few bucks.
I don't think we're going to hear too much more from the SIS on the nature of the hacking attacks, but it would be good to hear some independent analysis on just how sophisticated they are. This is the new frontier in international espionage.
Here in San Francisco, it's still September 10 and Osama Bin Laden's dyed beard and General Petraeus' report on Iraq are vying for attention on the cable TV news channels. I hope tomorrow's sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks passes without incident.
AMD finally launched its new quad-core server chips today.
I'm here for the Intel Developer's Forum after sitting through some good briefings on AMD's Barcelona processors so get to compare the rhetoric from the incumbent in the chip market, Intel, with what the challenger has been saying.
I though hard about buying an iPhone on this trip, given the attractive new price, but instead bought a high-definition hard drive-based Sony camcorder in duty free on the way over.
I'm enjoying learning how to use it - taking miniDV tapes out of the equation is fantastic. Anyway, I'm sure Apple doesn't need my business - they've just sold their millionth iPod. And with that US$200 price drop, sales are likely to remain strong.
The local tech blogosphere:
Public Address and Aardvark on the SIS hacking revelations.
Readwriteweb on Microsoft vs. Google Apps.
