Wait, what? How is this racist? If the story said 'All Chinese are hackers', that would be racist. If the story said, which it did, 'A person who lives and works in China for the government spy academy is a hacker', that is not racist.

Edit: Trolling troll is a troll. I 'knew' it was a troll account, but looked just now to be sure... created 34 minutes ago :P.

It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to such a way of journalism. you ask how?

Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not working for the government, is of no use. Do I care if the hacker, who hacked my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I don't.

But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal acts, like say terrorism.

Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a terrorist is a terrorist.

But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but not always, say when we experience something similar nearby).

In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our mind with.

'American Fraudster''Muslim Terrorist' 'Chinese Hacker' 'Japanese Pedophile' 'Hindu Extremist'

Pick a newspaper up some odd day, and you will find a lot of them.

PS: Indeed my reasons to call such articles 'slightly racist' are perhaps different for why the original poster said it was 'racist'.

You can make those associations in other contexts and I would fully agree with what you said here. A person can be a terrorist regardless of race, creed, religion, etc. The same for hackers. That said, the article is specifically discussing a Chinese GOV linked hacker, and thus he is a 'Chinese Hacker'. This can be said without being racist. That he's also of Chinese descent is inconsequential. I'm certain our spook operations have people of every race and background as long as they get the job done. If we say that someone was a 'Chinese Hacker' while they're sitting in the NSA office in Norfolk, VA... oh yeah, that's racist.

yeah, I read that. I was saying in general.

Though, one thing caught me in the article: Working on behalf of the state, and working in the state machinery is two different things.

If you are skilled, and suppose, you can really do stuff, he did in this case, and as it is, for a minute if we give him the benefit of doubt, that no he is not hacking on behalf of the state, its clear, that since to the chinese govt, itself, he is innocent. And the only thing that can be proven is his skill, through our validation. Which makes him all the very suitable to teach at a chinese IT related institute. so yeah, that might be a good reason to say that, we should introspect, that how should such articles shape our perception of the chinese.

Seriously, lets stop looking at who is building more weapons! Instead, lets compete in who is making more jobs!

It's like HN has never heard of the 50 Cent Army. Guess what, they're here and they aren't trolling.

I've heard of them, but you think this commenter wasn't simply a troll? Could be so, but I question how useful it would be here. HN is pretty well known, but enough to have concerted campaigns in place?

Just a comment, you meant "who", not "whom".

Indeed. Thanks for calling out my grammar mistake so early in the morning ;).

If it was a US hacker he'd be in jail.

A US hacker hacking the Chinese? I some how doubt it. Probably be offered a job. US hacker hacking US computers... well, I guess government has to vent its vengeance somewhere if it cant get its mits on foreign hackers. Dont get me wrong, my lot in the UK would do the same.

More over, if the Chinese wanted a US citizen extradited for hacking a Chinese computer, do you think the US would hand him or her over to the Chinese? Heh, I even doubt the US would hand a suspected hacker over to an ally like the Brits. Maybe Im wrong. If so, please cite a case.

And of course, equally I dont see the Chinese offering up its citizens for US "justice" any time soon. A justice system that many in the US think of as fundamentally broken.

All I read here is Chinese bad, West good, while forgetting that none of us have clean hands. If the Chinese had some technology we wanted or needed we'd be hacking their backsides off looking for it. And called patriots for doing so.

Lets just stop the moralising and finger pointing, and just get on and play the game. That's all it is. I suppose it fills the space left by the end of the cold war.

I'm not sure that someone hacking the Chinese would be offered a job. The case of Shawn Carpenter (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Shawn_Carpenter...) pertains here. He merely got in big trouble, but the CFAA probably could have been brought to bear on him.

I don't disagree with you about the moralizing, fingerpointing and games to fill the Cold War void.

Did you read the article? The Chinese government is involved in a vast, systematic and sustained cyber attack against the United States (and many other countries).

If the NSA or CIA were doing this, people would be just as interested in reading about one of them being sloppy and getting unmasked.

You think US agencies aren't? Heh, in the olde days, we had defectors. Now its easier. Same thing though.

They probably are - and I assure you an exposé about them doing so would hit the top of HN!