I was surprised last year when a security guru told me that hacking was the standard way international telcos get the drop on each other. Mobile and fixed operators all around the world spend millions constantly trying to break into each other’s networks and servers. “It’s standard practice,” shrugged my friend.

At the time I wondered how prevalent this was at a government level, given the rumours of massive teams of tame black hats working at the NSA, for example. The answer is: very. When Google went public in January with the details of an ultra-sophisticated attack by Chinese authorities against both itself and over 30 other major companies around the world, it was a watershed for all sorts of reasons. For a start, Google showed it has some major cojones to stare down the Chinese state, given that it’s just a private corporation.