Conficker, presumably scheduled to awaken millions of infected zombie computers to perform some diabolical deed like launching missiles against Paraguay or stealing the $1.79 left in America’s treasury, failed to launch as hysteria mongers such as myself predicted.That could mean only one thing: we have no idea what it means. It may indeed have been an April Fools joke created by the same vast cabal of scientists that have brought us such patently false theories as evolution and global warming. Or it may be completely correct except for the date. Or the programmers entered a 1 when they meant to enter a 0 and the launch is postponed to April 2nd.

Or it could mean that I’m posting this blog too early in the day.

CAESAR [To the Soothsayer] The ides of March are come.
SOOTHSAYER Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

We are on far more certain ground with a report that somewhere in China, a den of genius geeks is plundering vital information from 1,295 government and business computers in the United States and 102 other countries, deploying a worm that has until now eluded the smartest – make that the second smartest – engineers in the known computerized world. This on the authority of Paul Harris writing in The Observer. In a recent story, Massive Chinese computer espionage network uncovered, Harris writes, “The network, dubbed GhostNet, appears to target embassies, media groups, NGOs, international organisations, government foreign ministries and the offices of the Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan exile movement. The researchers, based at Toronto University’s Munk Centre for International Studies, said their discovery had profound implications.”

Despite an arsenal of smoking guns pointing to China, its government has denied any official involvement. Nevertheless, Cambridge University researchers have tagged their report on GhostNet “Snooping Dragon.”

“This report serves as a wake-up call,” say researchers Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski. “These are major disruptive capabilities that the professional information security community, as well as policymakers, need to come to terms with rapidly.” said researchers Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski.

Indeed, China’s invasion of vital computers is far more ominous than a bucket of mischievous worms. That’s why analysts abandoned the term “phishing” as inadequate to describe the operation. Instead, they’ve dubbed it “whaling.”
RC