One should not be surprised that the computers at Finance and Treasury Board in Ottawa are being hacked, most likely at the behest of the Beijing government. What should be surprising is the response of the Cons -- rather than loan the two departments the most secure computers there are, the ones at the spy agencies, the employees have been ordered to do their jobs at, wait for it, coffee shops with WiFi hotspots! Connections which are even less secure than the supposedly tamper proof systems the money departments had.
And this is the party of law and order? Cyber attacks are inevitable in the global village, but this has been going on for six weeks and we only found out late last night. Who knows what damage has been done to the integrity of our financial system in the meantime? Where is the response to that? Especially now in the age of "cloud" computing where servers as we've come to know them have become obsolete and replaced by virtual storage points.
What if the hackers were after even more important secrets -- our nuclear secrets, for instance? I've mentioned before that we in Canada have relatively unsecured nuclear weapons grade materials. It's not really a secret that China gives less credence and importance to non-proliferation than do our Western nuclear armed allies, one only has to look at the rather lackadaisical approach China has to North Korea. Or our arms secrets -- Afghanistan does share a border with China and the latter has never clouded its intent to be the regional superpower.
Like I said, this attack would have been unavoidable no matter who was in power. But it's the response or the lack thereof that is really bothering me.
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4 comments:
I would like it to be Wikileaks..we might find out something!
"While many countries immediately moved to strengthen their defences against potential cyberattacks, it wasn't until the fall of 2010 that the Canadian government went on high-alert against potential electronic intruders."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2011/02/16/pol-weston-hacking.html#ixzz1EEIlJvqZ
You note that this would have happened to matter who was in charge, but I would argue that the anti-science Harper ignored the genius of some Canadian Tech Gurus and left Canada vulnerable by waiting to do anything.
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Why on earth would you want it to be Wikileaks? There's a huge difference between posting leaked documents & actively compromising a govt computer system. The latter is a crime & if it was Wikileaks not only would that discredit them it would end them. Why would Wikileaks act maliciously and break into the system that holds our personal tax info? As a progressive I fail to see your logic
Harper and crew hate science, tech, and R&D. Most of them don't believe in evolution. Why would they fund research, or the hiring of scientists which may have stopped such attacks?
No. They prefer to spend money on unneeded jet fighters and prisons.
That helped.
Not.
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