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Comment: Internet - New shot in the arm for US hegemony
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-01-22 16:10
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US companies intend to make preparations for future global information control and sanctions during the progress of research and manufacture under the direction of the US government. As early as 2002, a CIA Internet spying plot was disclosed by the British media, saying the CIA sought to collect information by breaking into giant companies, banks and governmental organs and organizations across the world. Under the cover of a high-tech civil company, the CIA took cooperated with a software development company in the Silicon Valley to design software "bugs" to collect information via the Internet. The spying software binding with normal software would install automatically once a netizen started to use the normal software.
The New York Times reported in December, 2005 that the CIA cooperated with the country's telecom enterprises to invent a computer program capable of intercepting Internet communications. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS TV) claimed on Jan 11, 2006, that the CIA had established a special institution for the interception of information from other countries by using high-tech means. The institution's person in charge said in an interview with CBS that the CIA had obtained a great amount of information of great importance. Although Iran had been trying to hide its nuclear research and development work, the CIA found ways to get first-hand information and photos of its nuclear weapons work. The adoption of the interception technology helped the CIA get into the door of Iran's secret nuclear experiment after the execution of a CIA informant. He added that the CIA had never stopped its supervisory control over Iran since the wide adoption of the Internet and had built three tape libraries to store the information collected.
In the New York Times' words, social networking sites, as a new Internet favorite in the 21st century, have played a big role in protests in Georgia, Egypt and Iceland. The unsuccessful "Color Revolution" in Moldova in April 2009 was also called the "Twitter Revolution" because of the involvement of Twitter, a popular US-based Internet social networking site. There are people at the US-based Soros Open Society Institute who are in charge of boosting so-called "Democratic movement" in a "closed society" in the US. Iran had been in a turbulent situation after its election in June 2009, as the opposition party was spreading false messages, venting their discontent and holding protests on social networking sites such as Twitter and YouTube. The US government thought it such an effective tool to use against Iran that it even asked Twitter to postpone its regular maintenance date on June 15, saying, "Iran is in a defining moment, and Twitter is playing such a vital part in it, can you let it just work as usual?" The founder of Twitter felt excited to see that its site had become the "political tool" of the US government.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Twitter and other social networking sites are "strategic assets of great importance" because "these new technologies make it harder for the 'dictator regimes' to control information". A former intelligence official said the channeling of US ideology via the Internet is much easier than sending spies to target countries or training local agents in target countries who identify with US ideology. The move the US government made in June 2009 -- when it dissented over the Chinese government's order to install the filtering software Green Dam and pressured China's government for interfering in the freedom on the 'Net and the freedom of information flow -- is probably related to its intention to infiltrate China.
According to a Hong Kong media agency, the CIA invests tens of millions of US dollars every year to aid "Chinese net traitors" to infiltrate Chinese net users with US ideology. They haunt major Chinese forums and portals. A website called "Wazhe Online" (Chinese Pinyin) is a secret mission with the cooperation of US government institutions and overseas "Tibetan splittist organizations" with the tasks of agitating, deluding, infiltrating and instigating Chinese net users, making up rumors to initiate riots and collecting information via the Internet. A Tibetan youth who once worked with one organization said it is an online spy agency which is supported by the US financially, controlled by the Americans and serves the Americans. A commentary on Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao said those who publish stories sensitive to China's policies on the net have complex backgrounds and are hired by US and Japanese spy agencies.
US State Secretary Hillary Clinton has also attached importance to the Internet after taking office. She claimed that it's necessary to deal with the countries that roll back US media with the force of the Internet, especially making use of Facebook, YouTube, Flicker and Twitter to send voices from the US.
Former US President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 16 (NSPD-16) to set up the first hacker force in American history, as well as of world history, in 2002. With the technology advantages, the US Department of Defense (DoD) advanced the idea of cyber warfare in 2004. In the summer of the same year, Bush signed a secret document which agreed to allow the DoD to launch a "hacker-style" devastation attacking enemies' computers. At the beginning of 2008, Bush again allowed the US forces to launch the cyber-attacks initially with the regard to giving the DoD a greater counter-power on the network. He demanded the forces to have the capability of accessing any open or closed long-distance computer network, and then maintain "complete concealment" and "quietly steal information" to destroy enemies' computer systems, destroy their command system, and even control their business and government affairs networks. The Air Force Cyber Command was founded on Sept 18, 2008, with the mission of defending their own network security and also attacking others.
