The media has recently dealt at great length on the so-called independent hackers and the role of the Chinese State. I n my mind, it is a little bit like guerilla warfare; a much sought-after alternative to conventional forces. Guerilla warfare provides plausible deniability to the sponsoring State.... !!!gg

The recent announcement by the United States giant search engine Google that it might withdraw from China made the headlines in world media. The Google decision highlighted the aggressiveness of the Chinese hackers who had been penetrating cyber fortresses like the Pentagon or the White House (as well as the PMO or the MEA in India!).

Claude Arpi spoke to Shishir Nagaraja, the co-author (with Ross Anderson) of The Snooping Dragon: Social malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement, published by University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in March 2009.

Shishir Nagaraja, currently associated with the Information Trust Institute of the University of Illinois (US), tells rediff.com, not only about the Google episode, but also his experience with the Office of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and the world of hackers, in general.

He believes that we have only seen the beginnings of the cyberwar, the 'war of tomorrow'. In the not-too-distant future, it will affect each one of us.

...more