Military Christmas Card
Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:38:15 +0000
BEIJING — Deep inside a Chinese military engineering institute in September 2008, a researcher took a break from his duties and decided — against official policy — to check his private e-mail messages. Among the new arrivals was an electronic holiday greeting card that purported to be from a state defense office.
The researcher clicked on the card to open it. Within minutes, secretly implanted computer code enabled an unnamed foreign intelligence agency to tap into the databases of the institute in the city of Luoyang in central China and spirit away top-secret information on Chinese submarines.
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Having lived in Germany for 3 years, the message in this card surprised me. I guess in 1954 the Germans were a lot less receptive to the American presence than they were in the mid- to late 1980's.
On the other hand, for a member of the military to be able to afford a huge house complete with maid and gardening service? Wow. We had a tiny apartment in the basement of a house on a hill overlooking a small town complete with castle. No maid.
But the German family who lived in the house loved Americans and made us feel welcome in their tiny little town.
The people who wrote this card didn't want to stay ...
We didn't want to leave!
