This is low-quality Ars Technica blogspam. Don't submit a link to an article briefly summarising another article. Submit the article in question itself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targ...

I don't find this particularly surprising or secretive. It seems logical and sensible to me that governments would try to hack each other for information.

Espionage has been par for the course since long before the information age. We've decrypted messages and radio transmissions for decades, this just appears to be the advancement of technology.

It might be somewhat more difficult and allow for access to more sensitive information, but it really just seems to be a natural escalation to what we've always done as a country.

Espionage was a key force multiplier long before that; Julius Ceasar discusses specific episodes in his commentaries on the Gallic wars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentarii_de_Bello_Gallico

I don't find this one very remarkable - it basically consists of 'identify targets that would be of strategic importance in any potential future conflict.' Many military powers, and certainly all those with nuclear capability, do that as a matter of course, which is why things like spy satellites exist. Taking into accounts all the caveats (see eg pages 8-10) this seems pretty inoffensive.

The timing of this is interesting because President Obama is going to be meeting with the President of China Xi Jinping this week. The US has been quite critical of China's cyber attacks in recent times.

The thing is, China is most definitely "attacking already."

Drawing up a list would be pretty light in comparison, though I'm not saying we're not also "attacking."

I bet leaks like that don't happen in China.

Only when one powerful politician wants to bury another. And that's also common in the US, whether with politicians or agencies - they burn eachother constantly.

Don't give them any ideas. :P