Note: The report is based on
Ellen Nakashima, US Said to Be Target of Massive Cyber-Espionage Campaign. Washington Post, Feb 10, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wo ... e81040ba_story.html
("The National Intelligence Estimate identifies China as the country most aggressively seeking to penetrate the computer systems of American businesses and institutions to gain access to data that could be used for economic gain. The report, which represents the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community, describes a wide range of sectors that have been the focus of hacking over the past five years, including energy, finance, information technology, aerospace and automotives")
"The Chinese, who have already broken into the White House computer network, have now pilfered, maybe spear-phished, oceans of e-mails from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
"With the Chinese stockpiling our vile, vexed, vulgar, vivacious and vinous e-mails, they can trounce us easily. They can simply threaten to release a batch of our e-bombs about our bosses, spouses, dates, friends and crushes. We’ll all lose our jobs, but everyone else will, too, so we can just reboot and change places.
"It’s already too late to stop sending embarrassing e-missives, with a decade worth of hand grenades out there rolling around.
"Just as Obama knows in his heart that, while seductive, drones need limits, so we know that, while seductive, e-mails need limits — because sooner or later, the Chinese or some bitter hacker in his basement or some 10-year-old kid is going to make all our titillating e-mails public.
"The rule of thumb in Washington used to be: Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want to see printed on the front page of The New York Times. The new rule is: Don’t send an e-mail you wouldn’t want to see printed on the front page of The New York Times. (Especially if you work here.)
My comment: I have not read her column before. So I do not know whether she is tongue in cheek, being playful.