Dammit China, if you wanted our maple syrup recipe, you could have just asked.
Earlier today, our government announced that state-sponsored Chinese hackers have been spending the last month trying to infiltrate the computer systems of the National Research Council (NRC), Canada’s primary research organization for science and technology. Whether China is interested in finding out the inner workings of our defense forces, or how Ontario grows red apples to be so sweet and plump is still under speculation.
Today, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, who is on a three-country tour of Asia, met with Chinese officials in Beijing to shake his finger up and down, and tell them how naughty they’ve been. China, however, denies that the government had any involvement. Yang Yundong, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Canada, said in a statement released today:
China ranks number one in shadiness among nations
Ng Han Guan
Classic China, playing the victim card. Our resident BS-experts at the True North Times translate that last sentence to mean: “You did it first, biatch! How you like me now?” The Canadian government has not told the public how they know that China’s government is involved in this cyber-attack, rather than some rogue Chinese teenagers, but we imagine that they’d have to be pretty sure about this kind of thing before they start with impromptu diplomatic spankings.
To defend themselves against the ‘alleged’ Chinese hackers, the NRC has enacted a complete shutdown of their computers, and begun a massive security overhaul that is expected to last one year. Fool us once, China, shame on you! Fool us twice…. well, this actually isn’t the first time Chinese hackers have done this. Or the second time.
Apparently, China has targeted everybody, from the Finance Department to the Treasury Board to the Bank of Canada. They’ve even infiltrated the emails of Canadian MPs, specifically ones in areas with large populations of Chinese-Canadians. For all the money and resources China has, they still haven’t figured out that Canadian Members of Parliament do, well, virtually nothing. The most juicy stuff they could find in those email accounts is probably politician gossip and maybe some evidence of scandalous spending (though you just need eyes to see that). Nothing they couldn’t just read about in the latest copy of OK Canada.
The world is probably not going to take any of this too seriously. In a political climate dominated by the Internet, a little bit of cyber penetration is to be expected. Canada should just do a better job of keeping our secrets secret. Canada’s red apples are for us, and us only.