Enter the Cyber-Dragon

China’s aggressive campaign of cyber-espionage began about a decade ago, with attacks on U.S. government agencies. (The details have still not been divulged.) Then China broadened the scope of its efforts, infiltrating the civilian sector in order to steal intellectual property and gain competitive advantage over Western companies. Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee, who gave Aurora and Night Dragon their names and has written definitive studies of A.P.T. attacks, says that “today we see pretty much any company that has valuable intellectual property or trade secrets of any kind being pilfered continually, all day long, every day, relentlessly.”

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Aug 2, 2011
Length: 25 minutes (6,411 words)

A Declaration of Cyber-War

Last summer, the world’s top software-security experts were panicked by the discovery of a drone-like computer virus, radically different from and far more sophisticated than any they’d seen. The race was on to figure out its payload, its purpose, and who was behind it. As the world now knows, the Stuxnet worm appears to have attacked Iran’s nuclear program. And while its source remains something of a mystery, Stuxnet is the new face of 21st-century warfare: invisible, anonymous, and devastating.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Mar 2, 2011
Length: 29 minutes (7,385 words)

Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury

Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Oct 1, 2010
Length: 42 minutes (10,624 words)

Shock and Ow!

Every three minutes, someone somewhere is getting tased by a law-enforcement officer. It is always painful, occasionally deadly, and likely to result in a hilarious YouTube video. But if you think the Taser is scary, wait until you see the stunning parental device the company is coming out with next

Source: GQ
Published: Jul 1, 2010
Length: 24 minutes (6,106 words)

Sextortion at Eisenhower High

Last year, an awkward high school senior in Wisconsin went online, passed himself off as a flirtatious female student, and conned dozens of his male classmates into e-mailing him sexually explicit images of themselves. What he did next will likely send him to jail for a very long time

Source: GQ
Published: Jul 1, 2009
Length: 6 minutes (1,663 words)