I chose the theme of "corporate control over society", which is basically the oppression of a larger group or society by another, either a corporation or government. The creative piece I used was a 1995 movie called "Hackers", it tells a story of a group of hackers who are being framed by a oil company for causing a oil spill. The group of hacker try to revel the truth that the company is causing the spill them selves to cover up the millions of dollars that have gone "missing".
I found an article on the ABC news site about the Rio Tinto executive who was arrested for stealing secret competitor information and the link with the Chinese governments involvement in hacking international companies to gain secret information and also to frame company employees.
My edited news story is below.... I'm off now to go update my laptops firewall before I fall victim to something like this....
Rio hacked at time of Hu arrest
Rio Tinto has been attacked by computer hackers, in what experts say is a growing global problem.
Rio Tinto's computer network was attacked by hackers around the time of Stern Hu's arrest, the ABC's Four Corners program has revealed.
Rio Tinto declined to comment on the incident, but former Rio employees and a senior government source have confirmed the company's Singapore office was taken off-line for three days to upgrade its security.
Senior mining executives also told the program that fellow mining giant, Fortescue Metals, was targeted by cyber attackers.
The Chinese embassy has denied any government involvement in the attacks.
But international security expert Professor Alan Dupont says there is increasing evidence that China practices commercial espionage.
"I think China, in particular, has seen opportunities to gain competitive advantage commercially through accessing commercial secrets," he said.
"I think that's become now part of a conscious strategic policy by China to improve its competitive position in all those fields."
“I think that's becoming now part of a conscious strategic policy by China to use hackers to steal commercial secrets from international companies”
Former CIA case officer Daniel Slane told the program there had been many cases of hackers stealing commercial secrets from US companies.
And he said there was a lot of forensic evidence that pointed to the culprits being based in China.
Former CIA case officer Daniel Slane told the program this was a bigger issue then most people are aware.
"We believe that numerous corporations have been attacked, not only in the United States, but worldwide, and many of them are even unaware that they're being attacked," he said.
In a bid to shift the focus from the Chinese government they are using their hackers to place false evidence onto the computers of innocent parties. Reminiscent of the 1995 film Hakers where a large corporation uses the cyber word to frame a group of people for an illegal act committed by the corporation.
However in the present day it is not a corporation but a government which is using the cyber world against innocent people.
It is easy for China to use government hackers to steal information from an international corporation and even place incriminating evidence onto the computers of the employees of the company; which looks to be the case in Sturn Hu’s situation.
Computer security expert Ajoy Ghosh said hackers in other cases had gone as far as planting child pornography on victims' computers so that authorities had a reason to seize the computer.
"They can also insert files on to the travelling executive's computer and a common thing to do is to insert compromising material, perhaps it's a photo of that executive in a compromising position. Perhaps it's child pornography.
"Increasingly, there's a recognition that national security agencies and hackers for hire are being used to gather economic information."
With institutions like the Chinese government undertaking these acts we are in for a very uncertain future where our safety is not guaranteed and the information on our computers may not be our own.
"So once you've infected the computer the hacker has full access to that computer. So the first thing they can do is to browse files on that computer. They can copy the files from that computer to their own computer," he said.
"They can also insert files on to the travelling executive's computer and a common thing to do is to insert compromising material, perhaps it's a photo of that executive in a compromising position. Perhaps it's child pornography.
"Inserting child pornography has the benefit that later on the authorities can come knocking on the door and seize the computer legitimately because it has child pornography on it."
Mr Ghosh said hacking was increasingly becoming big business.
"There are multiple reasons that your computer might be compromised," he said.
"Increasingly, there's a recognition that national security agencies and hackers for hire are being used to gather economic information."
Editor's Note (May 11, 2010): A portion of the article claiming that Chemical Abstracts Services' (CAS) computer system had been breached by Chinese hackers has been removed. After the broadcast of Four Corners CAS told ABC this was untrue. They told us that several university systems with access to the online research tool SciFinder were hacked but at no time was the IT security system at CAS breached.
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