Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Inside the NSA’s ultra-secret China hacking group

US is the biggest cyber thief in the world.

TAO has successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecom systems for almost 15 years. TAO’s operators [are] tapping into thousands of foreign computer systems and accessing password-protected computer hard drives and e-mails of targets around the world.

China grapples with attacks on teachers after cheating halted on college exam


Days after dozens of Hubei teachers were attacked by angry students whose attempts at cheating on China’s highly competitive national college entrance exam were foiled, the nation is struggling to understand what exactly went wrong.

Patriot or traitor?


Monday, 10 June 2013

Amid China's Boom, Fake Wines Proliferate

Bruno Paumard, the cellar master at a vineyard in China, cannot stop laughing while describing a bottle of supposedly French wine a friend gave him two years ago.

Ex-Worker at C.I.A. Says He Leaked Data on Surveillance

A 29-year-old former C.I.A. computer technician went public on Sunday as the source behind the daily drumbeat of disclosures about the nation’s surveillance programs, saying he took the extraordinary step because “the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong.”

Sunday, 9 June 2013

Fire officials put the nation at risk as they rake in bribes

To get a business off the ground, the right people must be paid - so safety is neglected

Anti-graft teams cause stir as they prepare to fan out across China



Inspectors' best tool may be a simple one, but some question value of party investigating itself

Former Red Guard apologises to his victims of Cultural Revolution


In an advert and letters, Liu Boqin confesses that he beat teachers and terrorised families, and now understood 'sins of the Cultural Revolution'

Friday, 7 June 2013

US spy chief clarifies internet tapping policy

US spy chief James Clapper has admitted the government collects communications from internet firms, but says the policy only targets “non-US persons”.

Internet tapping aimed at non-US people outside US, says official

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - Information collected through a US government surveillance programme that taps into the servers of internet companies targets only non-US persons living outside the United States, a senior administration official said.

The US law that allows the collection of data under this programme does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located in the United States, the official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"This programme was recently reauthorised by Congress after extensive hearings and debate," the official said.

"Information collected under this programme is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats."

US secretly mining data from Internet giants

US intelligence agencies are accessing the servers of nine Internet giants as part of a secret data mining programme likely to fuel fresh debate about government surveillance, The Washington Post reported.

Some of the biggest firms in Silicon Valley were involved in the programme, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, PalTalk, AOL, Skype and YouTube, reports said.

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

Dr Yaacob’s incorrect and embarrassing New Zealand comparison

This morning, my eyes nearly popped out of my skull when I read in the ST that Minister for Communications and Information (MCI) had compared the MDA Licensing Regime to recommendations made by a New Zealand Law Commission Report on new media.

Link

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

AP admits its mistake in Shane Todd article

American news agency Associated Press (AP) has admitted its mistake in a story last week on the death of American researcher Shane Todd, saying it was “erroneously reported”.

Friday, 31 May 2013

Drink to good health

New findings show that the antioxidant resveratrol, which is only present in red and not white wine, is believed to help in the fight against cancer

Robberies of cashed-up Chinese tourists rise steeply in Paris

Mainlanders' preference for carrying large amounts of cash makes them easy targets

Boy’s graffiti in Egypt leaves Chinese cringing

Ding Jinhao was here.

Thursday, 30 May 2013

Chinese wonder why their tourists behave so badly

From faking marriage certificates to get honeymoon discounts in the Maldives to letting children defecate on the floor of a Taiwan airport, Chinese tourists have recently found themselves at the centre of controversy and anger.

AP article on Todd's death "inaccurate, misleading and mischievous"

Singapore's Ambassador to the United States, Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, has described a recent article by the Associated Press (AP) on American researcher Shane Todd's death as "inaccurate, misleading, and mischievous".

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

3-D printers help China jet development take off

Use of 3-D printing means China’s aviation industry is saving money and materials and could soon rival manufacturers in the US

Sick workers pay price for Chinese growth

As China boomed around 200 men set out from Shuangxi’s rural idyll to build its infrastructure and skyscrapers. Now lung disease from dust has killed a quarter of them and 100 more are waiting to die.