How the Chinese data breach reveals a flaw in the modern American character

How many people will be fired over this breach? Probably none.

Data breach
(Image credit: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel)

While Americans continue the endless debate about who we aspire to be, the Chinese have busied themselves with figuring out who Americans actually are. About four million of us to be exact. They looked us up online.

Allowing for the usual opacity of any story that touches on intelligence-gathering and data breaches, it appears that the federal government's human resources branch, a.k.a the Office of Personnel Management, was pwned by hackers a year ago — and the all the fingers are pointing at China.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.