are you worried yet?

If not, chances are that you've misjudged the situation. According to London's leftwing Guardian newspaper, the Chinese have taken cyberwarfare to a whole new level. Not only can they hack your computer or PDA, they can do all sorts of tricks with it, including turning it on, activating the videocam and microphone, and send the results back to home base on Hainan Island or Xinjiang province: 'Once opened, the virus allowed hackers to operate the host computer, including moving files and sending and receiving data. Their potential control was such that they could turn on an infected computer's camera and microphone, creating a surveillance bug.'

A hasty reading of the Guardian article would leave you with the impression that only that bothersome old bore, the Dali Lama, had been targeted, or that the responsible party might well be (who else?) the CIA. That's a big stretch on both accounts. 'In two years, the reports suggest, the operation infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.' As for the CIA, since when has it been running server farms in the Uighur autonomous region? Researchers at Cambridge University are more forthright: 'What Chinese spooks did in 2008, Russian crooks will do in 2010 and even low-budget criminals from less developed countries will follow in due course.' Enjoy your day. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford