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China’s 12-2am Experiments with African Union Servers

The government of China built a fine headquarters in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) for the African Union for free, in 2012. The cost was $200 million. But it now seems that might have been a James Bond kind of act:

… for five years, between midnight and 2 a.m., computer servers were reaching a peak in data transfer activity. A computer scientist noticed the oddity of the situation. The organization’s technical staff later discovered that the AU servers were all connected to servers located in Shanghai. Every night, the secrets of the AU were being stored more than 8,000 km away by what was thought to be a diplomatic ally of Africa.

Interestingly, the AU changed all the servers but as that was going on, China offered to help it configure them: “After the Chinese effort was exposed, the AU acquired its own servers and declined China’s offer to configure them”. Certainly, no one from Africa could configure servers, they had thought.

This is not new. Recall the time Kofi Annan was complaining that everyone was bugging his phone at the UN. One former FBI offered free help to him, explaining that it would be extremely atypical if no one was actually doing so. In other words, Mr. Annan should have expected that everything he said in the building was recorded by some pens, exercise books, flowers or even the paint. China got caught; they would surely try harder next time. That is the world we live now, unfortunately.

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So, what were those African leaders thinking, when the 'beautiful' offer was made, and they accepted? That would amount to height of stupidity, if they ever believed it was all for good intentions. Nothing is completely given for free, to expect free stuff makes you more or less a funny creature. And Africa is going head and neck very deep inside China, we are OWNED! Yes, every big nation spies, but that of China...

We must learn to localize certain critical infrastructures, and politely tell our foreign partners: no; when they offer one of those Trojan horses. China got caught in one act, but as we write, so many spying and episonage are ongoing.

its  high  time  we  take  our national security  very  serious.

So, what would be the solution, Ndubuisi, in your opinion?

The solution is for Africa to finally wake up from its slumber and get down to work.

Until they are able to stand on their own two feet they must accept all the aids they are offered and try to make the best they could out of it.

In the "RENAISSANCE PROJECT" I am offering Nigeria a thirty years PLAN at the end of which they would end up with 50,000 new factories, 1,110 new affordable well organized communities to "decongestion" the large cities, and, as cream over the cake, an additional one hundred billion dollars to their current GDP. Don't you think that, at that time, Nigeria would be breathing easier, being the third most populated nation in the globe and a self-sufficient economically independent one, as well? Think over all this, Ndubuisi, and let me know, because I need as many supporters as possible to make that dream come true.

Accepting anything from the developed countries for free truly comes with a price that in the long run costs much more than the real cost of the free gift! I suffer short-sighted think.

Unfortunately most Africans, especially the leaders are naive and gullible. We must apply 'common sense'. Isaac Watts in his 1841 book "Improvement of the Mind" advocates expansive in-depth reading and intuitively gleaning from lessons learnt from books as the best route to develop and improve our mind and thus 'evolve'.

Truly I find it difficult to believe that we humans are all of one species, Homo Sapiens! Yuval Noah Harare, in his books Sapiens and Homo Deus suggests that we are in for a shift in genome constituent, a new species of humans is evolving, African are certainly not part of that. Dan Brown adds to this claim in his new book Origins, that we probably could have a new kingdom, Technicum. Only we can save ourselves and the path to that salvation is clear!

PS: Nd, I think Kofi's last name is Annan not Annam

"PS: Nd, I think Kofi's last name is Annan not Annam".

Just fixed that - thanks.

Wake up Africa! It’s high time we stopped depending on everyone else but ourselves. We have what it takes. Just a little more hard and smart work.