The NY Times published an article today about China's underworld.

The reporter - David Barboza - interviews a Chinese hacker that goes by the handle - Majia.

Internet security experts say China has legions of hackers just like Majia, and that they are behind an escalating number of global attacks to steal credit card numbers, commit corporate espionage and even wage online warfare on other nations, which in some cases have been traced back to China.

In addition to independent criminals like Majia, computer security specialists say there are so-called patriotic hackers who focus their attacks on political targets. Then there are the intelligence-oriented hackers inside the People’s Liberation Army, as well as more shadowy groups that are believed to work with the state government.

Just about every major country has at least one government-sponsored "cyber warfare" group - including the United States. In fact, there has been speculations that North Korea graduates about 500 "cyber warriors" every year from their training programs. 

Computer hacking is illegal in China. Last year, Beijing revised and stiffened a law that makes hacking a crime, with punishments of up to seven years in prison. Majia seems to disregard the law, largely because it is not strictly enforced. But he does take care to cover his tracks.

He even claims to know details of the Google attack. “That Trojan horse on Google was created by a foreign hacker,” he says, indicating that the virus was then altered in China. “A few weeks before Google was hijacked, there was a similar virus. If you opened a particular page on Google, you were infected.”

When asked whether hackers work for the government, or the military, he says “yes.”

Does he? No comment, he says.