Wow, what a story. While most people I know are at either VoiceCon or CTIA this week, this one is worth staying home for. Also, I'm sure all the Skype followers are focused today on the news about working with the iPhone – and that IS a big story. However – for very different reasons – I'm sure you'll find this one of interest too.
This was a front page story in today's Globe and Mail, and no doubt many other Canadian dailies. I don't particularly follow cyber-crime, but this story is pretty incredible, and for the VoIP crowd there's an important Skype tangent. This will make a great thriller movie some day (maybe I should write it!) with all kinds of angles that normally don't have much to do with one another – China/Tibet, cyber-spying Toronto, Canada, Google and Skype. Are you intrigued? Read on, please.
In short, a team of academics/tech researchers based at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, discovered a Dr. Evil-like cyber-spying network with global implications. The threat is largely around how data that is sensitive to Tibet's security is being poached and monitored from PC's all over the world, and how many of the links point to servers located in China. I'll stop there – am sure you can imagine for yourself just how charged these issues and allegations are. Phew!
I'll leave the politics aside, but as the reports describe, it's a story that took a life of its own with one small discovery leading to many others, and finally to the news that went public today. I'm no hacker, but can appreciate how complex these things are, and how you have to think like a hacker to reveal the Rosetta Stone that gets you on the trail to the source.
Incredibly, the breakthrough that cracked the code was not an ingenious repeat of what went into Colossus (the famous Bletchley Park-developed computer that solved the code of Nazi messages – arguably saving Britain from defeat in WWII) – but a simple Google search!!!