Well, duh. We point spy satellites everywhere as well, for exactly the same reasons (and I'm pretty sure that a) nobody's going to quit using Google Earth and b) the government pays attention to what people chatter about in the GE forums and so on because some of that has intelligence value). All significant military powers maintain lists of strategic targets in other countries as a matter of course.

Next you'll be telling me that military compiles detailed maps of foreign nations for potential distribution to troops, and that we have spies on our payroll.

On the other hand, at a time when someone might be examining their opinions and conclusions on what limits governments should have on spying and information gathering on people living in the country's borders, it also seems prudent to examine actions governments take against those who don't live inside those borders.

There is one very efficient way to thwart these big data collection attempts: build fake profiles and build fake networks. If everyone would use a little of his or her time to do this, it would be extremely difficult to find the real address or security number or phone number of a person.

I foresee quite some opportunities for startups who would automate this. In this case not for "evil" purposes such as fake product reviews, or spam, but for - I would say - this ethically acceptable purpose of making it a tad harder to mine your personal information online.

I was thinking if everyone increased the noise to signal it would thwart their attempts. If everyone talks about illegal stuff their monitoring will useless for finding people that are actually trying to do illegal things.

Anyone else thinking this could be a coordinated effort by Chinese intelligence to discredit the USA?

Not passing judgement, but as a outsider this looks like a full fledged cold war.

In this case I don't think we needed the quote of a disgruntled or corrupted official to know how offensive the US has become in cyberspace in recent years (see all the malwares attacks Stuxnet/Flame against Iran). (Note I used the terms disgruntled, corrupted to assume the worst case scenario, but it could as well be a patriotic official who is concerned by what happens and wanted to raise the issue).

I had begun to speculate the same... Why else would China NOT want its citizens to use Google -> We are in a Cold War of Sorts...

Yes, I was wondering the same thing. The timing of the leaks is interesting. Has anyone made a good guess about the source of the leaks?

No. Sounds like an 80's CIA caper.

Maybe that's why the giant communication company Huawei is pushing so hard to get into Canada.

Again, not surprising, since other countries are actively engaged against us in the same manner.

At least they can stop being hypocritical about it, and stop pretending they're only ramping up cyber capabilities and trying to pass new bills for "defense", when it's obviously much more about offense than rather defense and real security.

That's always been the case. You'll never see a Department of Offense or a Ministry of Destruction. Even when we're busy bombing and invading foreign countries, we do it to "defend strategic interests". It's doublespeak, of course, but it's always been like that.

It has not always been the case. Until 1947 the USA had a Department of War.

However since then we've been marching towards euphemism.

Cyberbullying - it's not just for Facebook.

But of course only the other countries are the evil ones.

every country is in the business of protecting its own interest. the internet is now a front in any possible conflict and the right thing from our perspective just like it is from theirs is to be prepared. it's not evil (although it is somewhat evil if you aggress pre-emptively, which China does, and it's definitely possible that we do as well, as we have militarily in the recent past.)