This month Farmers old and new alike took interest in Google's revelation it had fallen victim to “a highly sophisticated and targeted” cyber attack “originating from China” and resulting in the theft of its intellectual property. The official Googleblog went on to all but outright accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating the attacks in an attempt to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

As the evidence mounted that the People’s Republic was indeed behind the debacle it became clear we had an interesting power play on our hands - Superpower vs Cyberpower. It was interesting to speculate how that showdown would play out… 

The good news? It turned out the attacks (which also hit over 20 other companies) had exploited a vulnerability in IE 6 (http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/01/the-aurora-ie-exploit-in-action/)  – thus putting another nail in the coffin of a browser which should have been buried long ago.

For the record: The Farm happily ceased support for IE6 from October 31 2009. In the aftermath of the cyber attack Google, better late than never, announced it would follow suit from March 1. Thanks Hu Jintao!