Internet Sleuths Add Evidence to Chinese Military Hacking Accusations

Regular users of the Internet have been busy in the week since The New York Times reported that Mandiant, a computer security firm, had tied a prolific Chinese hacking group to a specific People’s Liberation Army unit in Shanghai. Chinese-speaking users and amateur hackers have scoured the Internet for traces of the online personas of those who Mandiant claims work on behalf of China’s P.L.A. Unit 61398.

The new evidence, while circumstantial, adds to the signs suggesting Chinese military efforts to hack into American corporate computer systems. Mandiant said that in one case, people were able to trace one of the P.L.A.’s hackers to an apartment building located 600 meters from the military unit’s headquarters. In another, they were able to trace one hacker back to the P.L.A.’s Information Engineering University, described by American computer security researchers as one of the Chinese military’s top training schools for computer hacking. They also found recruitment notices for Unit 61398, suggesting the group has been active since at least 2004, despite the fact that the unit’s headquarters were not built until later.