Did China 'hijack' the internet?

China says no. A U.S. security panel says yes it did — and with possible malicious intent. Who's telling the truth?

A new report suggests that China is capable of exploiting "hijacked" data from U.S. military and other sources.
(Image credit: Corbis)

For 18 minutes on one day in April, 15 percent of global internet traffic was rerouted through China, including messages from all four branches of the U.S. military, the Senate, NASA, and several government agencies. A Congressionally appointed commission investigating the incident says state-owned China Telecom might have "hijacked" the traffic to harvest sensitive data. China Telecom calls the allegations "completely groundless." Who's telling the truth? (Watch a Fox News discussion about the controversy)

You'd believe China? It will be hard to conclusively tie this "disturbing" event to the Chinese government or a "patriotic hacker" working for it, says Dean Cheng at the Heritage Foundation. But "when taken in conjunction with other recent Chinese cyber activities," it seems likely this was part of China's increasingly aggressive internet war on the U.S., private enterprise, and its own dissidents.

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