Hacked off at China: Google takes on the Red Dragon

I realize this news isn't as mainstream as Heidi Montag getting 34 plastic surgeries last month at a drive-thru clinic in California, but I argue that it's slightly more important.  Over the past decade, the Chinese have been perperating extremely sophisticated and coordinated cyber attacks on a variety of U.S. interests from goverment to large corporations.  These attacks rarely make big news for a variety of reasons, but recently Google has decided to raise a red flag.

Google has threatened to shut down their Chinese search engine and pull out of the country unless the government agrees to allow uncensored search in the communist country.  The event that prompted their tough stance was a serious attack on their infrastructure.  An attack that Google has all but officially accused the Chinese government of conducting.  Of course the Chinese deny involvement.  Right.  And Mongolia built that wall to keep the Chinese out.

We all know that the Chinese are dirty players and power hungry, but these attacks can be construed as an act of war-like agression.  Interpol estimates roughly $1 trillion in stolen intellectual property was stolen through hacking in 2008.  The vast majority of attacks originate in Russia and China and even though their governments deny involvement, their words are meaningless.  They stand there like four-year olds with icing all over their faces, and deny eating the cake.

So why do we treat cyber theft so lightly?  If the Chinese government waltzed into Bank of America and stole $1 billion dollars, we'd have the entire Pacific fleet parked off of the coast of Japan.  Yet because the crimes happen electronically, nobody seems to care.  They are on the other side of the world, not at our borders but their intent is the same:  cripple us, while they grow stronger.

So how much is enough and what should our retaliation be against the Chinese?  Government sponsored cyber warfare?  Boycotts?  Miltary action?  I don't believe Military action is the right answer, and cyber attacks might escalate into mass chaos.  But maybe the old adage of living and dying by the sword could still apply.  They attack us with computers; we attack them with computers.  The difference is that we drop our from airplanes over Beijing and Shang Hai.

Would several thousand desktops cause billions of dollars in damage?  No, but it would sure get their attention.