After a week-long campaign in the trenches of cyberspace, Chinese hackers Wednesday declared victory in their unofficial war with the United States and retired from the virtual field of battle. Chinese hackers say they didn't initiate the conflict, claiming U.S. hackers were taunting them as far back as April 1. Dubbing the conflict China's sixth cyberwar, Honker Union launched the campaign against the United States on May 1, the May Day workers' holiday. The offensive action coincided with escalating diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Washington over the April collision of a Navy surveillance plane over the South China Sea. U.S. hackers didn't sit idle as such high-profile Web sites as the White House, CNET and the Department of Commerce were either DoSed or defaced.
Observers say U.S. hackers struck an equal number of Chinese Web sites during the eight-day battle.
The Chinese hacker's declaration of victory seems hollow to information warfare experts, who say it's hard to quantify the extent of the damage or success of such a campaign. There's been Web sites hacked for a long time. Chinese have hacked U.S. Web sites before, but now they just have a political message. The escalation of cyberspace tensions came as no surprise to many analysts, who have long observed the Internet's use as a vehicle for political messages. This is really just another example.