USA owes China an apology; but I surely don't!

The concerted effort by USA politicians and media to paint China as the "world bad cyber citizen" kind of backfired with the Snowden revelations. As Larry Ellison is reported to have said to Steve Jobs, "That moral high ground is expensive real estate." Not only does the U.S. owe China and apology, but they owe the American public an apology too. Because the only people who DID NOT know the extent of USA penetration of China's assets were…the American public. That's the trouble with spook shops and secret programs. All it takes is one whistle blower and the proverbial jig is up. And as I wrote recently, that's the trouble with PRISM (see my posting here).

Our cyber security policy should have been public (a la The Morgan Doctrine). Sure, I've been ragging on China since the beginning of this adventure. But I had the guts to put the skunk on the table and name the offending Chinese server IP addresses (see my November 11, 2010 posting here). For two-and-a-half years, I've called out the people who attacked me, and I've called them out with specifics. My publicly spanking the Chinese has gone unanswered. So I don't owe you guys any kind of apology. Yep, I'm taking your assault on my systems personally. In public. Selah.

But the U.S. owes you an apology. I'd like to think that's why Jon Huntsman resigned as ambassador to China, and why he's promoting "hacking back" as the proper deterrent to Chinese bad Internet citizenship (see my reporting of the New York Times story here). It's clear now, however, why the USA has not wholeheartedly adopted Huntsman's hack-back proposal. Who wants to put themselves in the crosshairs of their own policy?

Yeah, like Larry Ellison said: "That moral high ground is expensive real estate."