Color me skeptical.

Yeah, me too.

It smacks of "a commie in every computer" coming down the track.

Also, it seems an exceedingly good way to justify gouging the electrical (or other system) customers more to "ensure their security".

According to Wayne Madsen Report (.COM) -- the best detector in WashDC of reverse fear-psychology BULLSH!T -- this 'hack news' is our own taxes paying our own CIA/NSA-spyboys to proxy thru servers with China and Russia and Enemy Bogeyman URLs, to scare the crap out of everyone who believes the Bushlicking newspapers.

See this (today only) at WMR:

BS Alert: U.S. electrical system penetrated by hackers from China and Russia. "Revelations" about SCADA security (something some computer security charlatans have harped on for years) comes just before RSA Conference, at which all sorts of companies will have their hands out for cyber-security cash from Uncle Sam.

See this (subscribers only) at WMR:

March 31, 2009 -- "Chinese" cyber-attack a "false flag" designed to beef up NSA role in cyber-defense

WMR's sources in Beijing report that the recent so-called "GhostNet" cyber-espionage campaign that reportedly was a Chinese government operation that penetrated government and private computers in 103 countries was, in fact, a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) "false flag" attack designed to heighten cyber vulnerabilities and ensure that it is granted new powers by the Barack Obama administration that will see it established as a national cyber-warfare center. The move by NSA follows by a couple of weeks the resignation of Rod Beckstrom as chief of the National Cybersecurity Center, which is under the Department of Homeland Security. Beckstrom resigned over NSA's new power play to take control over cyber-security in the United States.

It is also no secret that NSA director, General Keith Alexander, has made it known to the Obama administration that he would like to be named as the government's cyber-security "czar."

In fact, Chinese intelligence sources report that NSA, using a group of Chinese computer hackers it recruited from the 1989 Tiananmen protest and from the Falun Gong group, cleverly killed two birds with one stone. The NSA was able to pin blame on the Chinese for the GhostNet global penetration that reportedly gained access to classified material while at the same time procuring and deleting "names, project descriptions, budgets, and financial records" on operations that involve NSA's involvement in economic espionage and warfare, including computer files on American International Group's (AIG) interaction with U.S. intelligence operations. The collapse of AIG, especially in Asia, has, according to our sources, seen lap top computers and code books "walk away" from AIG offices. Apparently, some AIG employees, fearful of being left "out to dry," absconded with information linking AIG to both NSA and CIA activities as an insurance policy against threats and being named as scapegoats by AIG's top management.

Our Chinese sources report that NSA carefully designed its cyber-attack to make it appear to computer security researchers that the hacking involved "Chinese" control servers located in Hainan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, and Hong Kong. Interestingly, one of the "Chinese" servers is hosted at a web hosting company in the United States. NSA has, under its highly-classified "offensive information warfare" project, created a $20 million team of Chinese-speaking hackers who penetrate foreign computers to make it appear that the hacking is originating in China.

A Toronto-based computer research group, Information Warfare Monitor, traced the GhostNet hackers to Hainan island, the headquarters of China's southern fleet, including its missile submarines. However, WMR has learned that the so-called "Chinese servers" in Hainan used to launch the GhostNet attack are based at the headquarters of Hainan Airlines, owned by News Corporation media mogul Rupert Murdoch with the financial backing of the Rothschild bank. According to our Beijing sources, the covert cyber-espionage operation, which is run in association with NSA and Israeli intelligence telecommunications and Internet experts, involves as "wink and a nod" from the still-powerful Hainan business clan of the late Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping.

The Canadian researchers identified the penetrations of computers originating "from commercial Internet access accounts located on the island of Hainan."

Information Warfare Monitor researchers stipulated that there was no evidence that the hacking involved the Chinese government.

WMR has linked Hainan Airlines, through Securities and Exchange Commission filings, to a McLean, Virginia telecommunications firm called Global TeleSystems Group, Inc. (GTS) and there is a corporate nexus between Hainan Airlines, GTS, and the Chatterjee Group, with which Marvin Bush, the brother of former President George W. Bush is affiliated. Another major investor in Hainan Airlines is the Quantum Fund of George Soros.

Perhaps not so curiously, The Jerusalem Post reported on March 30 that the Israeli Foreign Ministry claimed not to be aware of the "Chinese" cyber-espionage ring that grabbed the world's headlines over the weekend. The Israeli paper quoted an anonymous Israeli Foreign Ministry official as stating, "I'm not aware of it, and even if there had been some sort of breach, I'm not sure that anything would be released, because our relationship with China is so sensitive."

Chinese intelligence suspects that Israeli intelligence cyber-spies have previously used Chinese computers as pass-throughs in previous cyber-espionage actions in order to mask their identities.

It is also noteworthy that of the 103 countries said to have been hacked by the so-called Chinese cyber-spies, Israel was not mentioned in any initial news reports. However, targeted computers included those in the foreign ministries of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados, and Bhutan. Computers in the foreign embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany, and Pakistan were also reportedly hacked. The computer system of the office of the Prime Minister of Laos was also a target as was a NATO computer. Taiwan saw the most hacking incidents -- 148 of them --that included its embassy in Swaziland, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, and the Government Service Network. Malta also saw a fair number of hacks, including those on computers at its embassies in Belgium, Libya, and Australia, in addition to the Malta External Trade Corporation. Computers of the Dalai Lama's Tibetan government-in-exile were also penetrated. In February, it was reported that Australian classified government computers were hacked into by the Chinese.

Also penetrated were computers of the secretariats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Other targeted nations were Vietnam, Canada, France, Malaysia, Japan, Belgium, Solomon Islands, and the United States. Targeted computers included those of CanTV in Venezuela; the Bureau of International Trade Relations and the Department of Science and Technology in the Philippines; Deloitte & Touche in New York; the German embassy in Australia; the Indian embassies in Kuwait, Britain, Serbia, Germany, Italy, the United States, and Zimbabwe; the embassy of Papua New Guinea in China; the embassies of Romania in Finland, Norway, and China; the South Korean embassy in China; the Ministry of Labor and Human Resources in Bhutan; Pakistan Mission to the UN in New York; the Cuban Mission to the UN in New York; PetroVietnam; and the Russian Federal University Network in Moscow.

Canada's Information Warfare Monitor is funded, in part, by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) and ONI Asia, created by Soros.

Point of clarification for the above reference to AIG: WMR had previously documented the AIG operations being a CIA front company, particularly AIG's AIA 'subsidiary' in Asia.

Because AIG is a CIA operation going back over 50 years, is why the AIG megaBILLION$$$ 'financial prop up' was so outlandishly beyond law and regulation of normal 'finance reporting and oversight.'

If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that we cannot always expect our adversaries to come at us using the technology-heavy tactics that our military-industrial complex has seen fit to model and simulate in their wargames.

It would appear that we have again forgotten that lesson.

There is always something on the news to keep the american population scared. If its not a virus its "Iran with nukes", or "banks might fail", or "the nation is at yellow alert", or "this April Fools virus could bring down the whole country", or whatever. Whatever.