Microsoft has issued a stark warning about the rising threats to the critical infrastructure of the United States. The company, based in Redmond, Washington, reported on Wednesday that it had detected “stealthy and targeted malicious activity” perpetrated by a state-sponsored actor from China.

The FBI is warning U.S. Olympic athletes who are attending the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, China, to leave their cell phones at home, and instead pick up and bring temporary mobile phones, so-called ‘burner phones’ or disposable phones. The warning, put out last night (January 1, 2022), came from the FBI’s Cyber Division, and was announced as a warning to private industry. While the warning was also geared towards network operators and other industries, the warning specifically, and unusually, speaks directly to individuals as well.

China has started rolling out the Chinese ‘social credit score’, which takes into account, among other things, your behaviors, and your purchases. But don’t think you’re immune if you don’t live in China; companies around the world, including the U.S., are already compiling a ‘social score’ on you. While a “social score” is different in some ways from a “social credit score”, it’s not really that far removed, and the potential is pretty concerning.

During a diplomatic visit to China, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez Kirchner sent out a tweet mocking the Chinese, and perpetuating the stereotype that native Chinese speakers cannot pronounce the letter R.

China and the United States have been hacking each other for years. But the U.S. distinguishes between military espionage and “economic espionage”, the official U.S. position being that military espionage (which the U.S. does) is acceptable, while economic espionage (which China does along with military espionage) is not acceptable. Now the U.S. has indicted 5 Chinese military officials – members of the People’s Liberation Army elusive “Unit 61398” – with economic espionage for hacking into Westinghouse, Alcoa, U.S. Steel, SolarWorld, United Steel Workers Union, and Allegheny Technologies. (Full text of first 20 pages of indictment below.)

Cybersecurity experts have revealed that an army unit in China nicknamed “Advanced Persistent Threat 1” has been launching cyberattacks and data theft against American firms for some time. There seems to be enough evidence from the cybersecurity firm Mandiant to even pinpoint the origin of the attacks which have been linked to People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398.

We’ve all had days where we didn’t want to work, but according to Andrew Valentine, a principal for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, a man he calls “Bob” took it to a new level by by outsourcing his own six-figure-salaried job to China for $50,000/year, while he surfed Reddit and looked at cat videos.

Donald Trump has yet again managed to create controversy just by opening his mouth, or rather, updating his Twitter account. This time he got his behind handed to him by Chrysler Veep Ralph Gilles for perpetuating false claims stated by Romney, when Giles told Trum – very publicly – that he was, and we qoute, “full of shit.”

A Chinese American Sun Kaisens employee, an ex employee of Motorola, has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for stealing trade secrets from Motorola, including their IDEN technology, and attempting to smuggle them to a Chinese technology company in China. Hanjuan Jin, a 41 year old female employee, was a software engineer with Motorola for nine years. During sentencing, U.S. District Judge, Ruben Castillo, found that Jin made a “purposeful raid to steal technology.” In addition to being charged with three counts of stealing trade secrets, Jin was also charged with three counts of economic espionage.

It can be a pretty scary thing to log into your Gmail account and be met with a blazing red banner that says “Warning: We believe your account was recently accessed from:” followed by a geographic location that you decidedly aren’t, often a place such as Russia, Poland or China, and that followed by the options “Show details and preferences” and “Ignore”. Usually you can be certain that at that moment, the first thing you need to do is change your password, because your account was almost certainly hacked or otherwise compromised. However, that’s not always true if you get a warning of a remote access in the U.S., such as “We believe your account was recently accessed from: United States (CA).”

This past week fourteen people staged an escape from the Huai’an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre in China. Last August a Chinese teen who was sent to the Nanning Qihang treatment center for his Internet addiction died under the hands of his “instructors”. So, just what is going on in these Chinese “treatment centers” – or so called ‘Internet boot camps’ – that are designed to “cure” people of their web addiction?

As Google threatens to pull completely out of China, following allegations that the hack attacks against Google, code named “Operation Aurora” and first disclosed by Google last month, originated at two Chinese universities with strong governmental ties, the Chinese government is trying their own brand of shaping the Internet – by encouraging its citizens to send “red text messages”, also being referred to as “red snippets” and even “red jokes” (although they are not jokes). The Chinese term actually translates as “Red Duan” – ‘duan’ relating to measurement, such as a piece or stretch of time – in other words, a red era. According to authorities in China, the red text message – or red snippet – is intended to facilitate “the spirit of Chinese culture for an Internet age” and to combat the invasion of American culture. In the meantime, Google contemplates pulling out of China altogether after their discoveries in the wake of the Operation Aurora hacks, unless China agrees to allowing uncensored search.

With just two days until the 20-year anniversary of the horrific massacre at Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government has censored and blocked Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Live.com and Hotmail.com, and even the new Microsoft Bing.com

The government of China has had developed its own version of Linux – dubbed “Red Flag Linux” – and is requiring Chinese Internet cafe owners to replace their current Internet cafe operating systems with the Chinese Red Flag Linux.

Pirates have been in the news a lot lately. Not the pirates of yore, but modern-day pirates who are boarding and hijacking ships right now. In fact, there have been dozens and dozens of pirate attacks on ships off the coast of Africa alone this year, several of them just in the past week. Now you can follow these events with this online interactive map of current and recent acts of piracy.