My Q & A With Commander Kirk S. Lippold, The Former Commanding Officer Of The USS Cole, Which Suffered From A Terrorist Attack On This Date In 2000

Today is the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000. 

Back in 2012 I interviewed Captain Kirk S. Lippold, the commanding officer of the USS Cole when the ship was attacked by Islamic fanatic terrorist. 

You can read the Q&A via the pages below:

A Look Back on The 9/11 Attack On The Pentagon

I recall vividly the horrific 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon from 25 years ago today. 

On September 11, 2001, I was the civilian administrative officer of a Defense Department command in Philadelphia, where I oversaw security, safety and other programs.

I was sitting in my office that morning on a naval base in Philadelphia when one of our people stopped in and told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

"Accident or terrorism?" I asked.

When we later learned that a second aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, we knew we were under attack. Our commander, a U.S. Army colonel, sent all of our military and civilian employees home, as he didn’t know if, when or where another attack might occur.  

I remained at the base, along with the colonel and his deputy, and the three of us monitored the situation via the media and the classified communication equipment in my office. 

I remember the shock and dismay we felt when we learned that our headquarters, the Pentagon, was also attacked.  

My security job more than doubled from that day until the day I retired from the Defense Department in 2007.

I wrote a piece for Counterterrorism magazine on the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon in August of 2011.

You can read the piece below:

 

 

A Look Back At The History Of The U.S. Navy SEALs: My Piece On The Warriors Who Are At The Tip Of The Spear In The War On Terror

Back in 2015 my piece on the history of the U.S. Navy SEALs appeared in The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International.

You can read the magazine pages below or the below text: 

 

 

 

A Look Back at the History of the U.S. Navy SEALs

 

By Paul Davis

 

Despite the widespread attention paid to the Navy SEALs (Sea, Air and Land) since they killed Osama bin Laden, the story of how these clandestine warriors evolved in response to changing threats - from WWII to the War on Terror - and how their extraordinary abilities shaped U.S. and world history, has remained untold,” PBS said in announcing the TV special. 

“Few people know the unheralded tales of the first frogmen who dared to face almost certain death with little training, scant equipment and untested tactics.” 

PBS went on to state that the documentary, narrated by actor Gary Sinise, “recounts the ticking-clock missions of the “Commandos of the Deep” through firsthand accounts - including that of a D-Day demolition team member - and through never-before-seen footage, home movies and personal mementoes. Admirals, master chiefs, clandestine operators, demolitioneers and snipers all reveal how the U.S. Navy morphed into the SEALs.” 

“The SEALs’ history has never truly been told before,” said documentary film maker Carol L. Fleisher, the producer of the PBS special. “This is the first time that Naval Special Warfare has assisted with the research of a documentary about the Teams and their forefathers.” Dick Couch, a former Navy SEAL, Vietnam veteran and author of several nonfiction books about the SEALs, as well as several thrillers that feature SEALs, served as a consultant on the PBS series and coauthored the companion book, also called Navy SEALs: Their Untold Story. 

Couch said that there were a good number of facts unknown to him prior to his involvement in the TV special and the book. “In several of my books I’ve gone into a brief history of the Navy SEALs, UDT, and all that type of thing, but very superficially” Couch said. “So it was very interesting for me to learn in depth about some of the characters who had come before me and some of them who came after me, and what they did and how they did it.” 

Couch said he came away with not only a better understanding, but also a bit more admiration for the SEALs. “These guys are tremendous innovators,” Couch said. “From the early days, right up until the present. Flexibility and ingenuity are things that have driven the organization and still drive the organization.” 

William Doyle, the co-producer of the PBS special and co-author of the companion book, said that like many other people, he became fascinated with the Navy SEALs in the wake of the bin Laden raid. “As a writer, I was also intrigued to discover that there was no complete account of their history from World War II through today in book form and that many of their greatest stories had not been fully told,” Doyle said. “I wrote the book so I could learn their history by interviewing the SEALs themselves. I had a feeling that these stories would make for thrilling reading.” 

Doyle said that the SEALs have a reputation as near-supermen, but he wanted to learn about their difficulties and failures in order to get a deeper understanding of who they are as human beings. “Carol Fleisher is a gifted, highly respected filmmaker with a passion for great non-fiction storytelling, and wonderful to work with. The SEALs we interviewed loved talking to her, too. One of them told me, “You tell that woman I’m putting her in my will,” Doyle said. 

Doyle noted that they had two critical sources. One was their original interviews with more than 100 SEALs and Naval Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU) and Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) members (their WW2 and Korea predecessors). The second critical source was thousands of pages of declassified files made available to the producers by the Naval Special Warfare Command. 

“We also consulted the work of other authors, journalists and historians,” Doyle said. “We interviewed an NCDU demolitioneer who was one of the first men on Omaha Beach on D-Day; a UDT member who conducted a hair-raising, mine recovery operation off the waters of North Korea; a SEAL who was loaned to the CIA for a secret attack on Cuba in 1962; the first commander of SEAL Team One; two Vietnam Medal of Honor winners; and SEAL combat veterans of Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of these stories were never told before.” 

“One of the most startling pieces of information we uncovered was the fact that in the first year of their existence, a team of SEALs was secretly transferred to the CIA, stationed in Florida, and tasked with training teams of Cuban frogmen and saboteurs to attack targets in Cuba, as part of the Kennedy administration’s anti-Castro Operation Mongoose program and related operations,” Doyle said. “We tell the story in our book for the first time of how one of those SEALs accompanied the Cubans on an operation that blew up Soviet missile-patrol-boats in the harbor at the Isle of Pines, Cuba.” 

Doyle said that one of his favorite moments in the book recalled the day in 2010 when Admiral William McRaven, the SEAL who oversaw the bin Laden raid, appeared at the door of an Afghan farmer whose sons were among five civilians accidentally killed during a raid by his men. “Sir, you and I are very different,” Doyle recounts Admiral McRaven saying to the farmer. “You are a family man with many children and many friends. I am a soldier. I have spent most of my career overseas away from my family. But I have children as well, and my heart grieves for you. But we have one thing in common. We have the same God. He is a God who shows great love and compassion. I pray today that He will show mercy on me and my men for this awful tragedy.” 

“Politicians love to talk about “American exceptionalism,” but when I see it in action, I feel especially proud to be an American,” Doyle said. Doyle said that most SEALs rarely talk to outsiders about their operations, so they first contacted the U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare Command and asked for their help and asked if the command would give the project a security review. Once they had the help of the command, they were able to talk to a good number of SEALs. 

Doyle said their book was also reviewed and cleared by the Pentagon and the CIA, adding that although there is nothing classified in the book, there is much history that will be new to a great many readers. “Dick Couch was a critical piece of our being able to tell the story,” Doyle said. “He is a former SEAL with Vietnam combat experience, and one of the most respected writers on the history of American special operations. His name opened a lot of doors for us in the SEAL community, and he had a big hand in the actual writing of the book.” 

Couch spoke of the SEALs’ forbearers, the Underwater Demolition Teams. “There was a need for reconnaissance before we put people ashore in WWII,” Couch explained. “This really came into focus during the battle for Tarawa, where we started this long march across the Pacific island-hopping campaign. We suffered horrible casualties at Tarawa because we lacked knowledge of the hydrographic conditions off shore and of the obstacles placed on the beach by the enemy. We quickly needed guys who could go ashore and find out what was there and at some future point, before the Marines went ashore, go back in ahead of them and blow up those obstacles. That is where the UDTs came into being and they ran in front of almost every major amphibious operation across the Pacific.” 

Couch said that the UDT in the Korean War were tasked with going ashore and conducting raids along the coast, placing demolitions and destroying rail lines and other targets. “Except for the landings at Inchon and disabling Soviet mines, the UDT function was small,’ Couch said. “But it was the first time the UDT came out of the water, crossed the beach, and undertook inland targets as part of their mission.” 

Couch said that early in the Vietnam War it was determined that there was a need for an unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency capability. So in 1962 the SEALs came into being with SEAL One on the West Coast and SEAL Two on the East Coast. “They just came of age, got funded and staffed and commissioned as entities and Vietnam was standing right there in front of them,” Couch said. Couch said that the SEALs trained the South Vietnamese SEALs and also participated in the Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRU) program. This was a CIA sponsored program and the intelligence agency used Marine Recon, Army Special Forces and SEAL advisors. 

“This was probably the most effective unit of all special operations deployed during that conflict,” Couch said. “Declassified North Vietnamese documents show that the PRUs were hurting them bad. The guys who lived with those PRUs and went out and fought with them--they were a special bred of fellas.” 

Couch also spoke of the SEALs’ involvement in the Grenada and Panama conflicts. “These things would come up and would have to planned and executed very quickly,” Couch said. “Both Grenada and Panama, and certainly the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission, surfaced the need that we must have an on-call, standing, responsive and effective small unit capability that on very short notice can go places and do things.” Couch also said that the unit also had to be integrated with their support components and communications. “So when the U.S. Special Operations Command was commissioned in 1986, it essentially became a 5th service,” Couch said. “You had the Army, Navy, Marine Corp and Air Force, and then you had the Special Operations Command.” “They cut their teeth on some of these missions. They were not the well-oiled, smooth-functioning organizations that served in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In Grenada they had some great difficulties and there were some very expensive lessons learned in these small, but vicious confrontations.” In Couch’s opinion, the well-publicized rescue operation of Captain Philips from Somali pirates, was relatively easy for the SEALs. “The whole thing was getting to the job site. You had guys that quickly went half way around the world, parachuted into the ocean, got in their boats and drove over to the U.S. Navy ship. They went aboard, got set up, and did what had to be done.” “And there was a tight time frame on this,” Couch added. “I admire the commanding officer of the destroyer the SEALs were on, because it was on his authority that the SEALs pulled the trigger on the pirates. It was a gutsy decision.” 

Regarding the most famous SEAL action - the bin Laden operation - Couch said that the raid was one of about seven special operations that took place that night. “The bin Laden operation was only special in the target, and that made it very special,” Couch said. “They went a long way into a foreign country, but the takedown of the compound was rather routine for this quality organization.” 

When asked about the two former SEALs who have spoken out about the bin Laden raid, Couch said there were two issues on the table. “One is the legal issue, and I think they may have stepped over their legal bounds,” Couch said. “But the second is the moral issue, and that’s where they really violated their moral obligation to their teammates. What they did on that operation, or on any operation, is team-centric. The analysts, intelligence collectors, aviation support, and combat support all go into getting the SEALs on target. Then there is the teamwork on target.” 

“In my opinion it is unconscionable that they should step out for what I see as vanity and money. To cash in on this while their brothers are still overseas in combat rotation fighting, is to me, very disappointing.” Couch noted that SEALs execute basic infantry tactics to a very refined level. They are not supermen, he said, and they are not super athletes. 

“The SEALs have been afforded a tremendous amount of training and they have the best equipment in the world. They say amateurs do things over and over until they get it right, and professionals, like these SEALs, do things over and over until they just can’t get it wrong.” 

Doyle said the most gratifying response they received after the airing of the special was from the SEALs themselves. “I was at a screening of the film at PBS headquarters in Washington, DC, sitting next to a Vietnam-era SEAL commander named Maynard Weyers, who led an operation during which the first SEAL died in the Vietnam War, a man named Billy Machen,” Doyle said. 

 “In our film, there is a moment when Maynard tears up and is visibly emotional at the memory of Mr. Machen, and I was very concerned that he didn’t object to the way we handled it. After the film, I asked Maynard what he thought. He smiled, gave me a thumbs up, and said, “you got it exactly right.” “That made me feel good.” 

The PBS special can be viewed at www.pbs.org. 

Paul Davis, a Navy veteran who served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, is a contributing editor to this Journal. His late father, Edward M. Davis, was a UDT frogman in WWII.

Note: I interviewed former Navy SEAL Dick Couch (seen in the below photo) and William Doyle (seen in the color photo below), the co-authors of the companion book to the PBS series on the Navy SEALs.

 

 My late father, Edward M. Davis (seen in the center of the below photo), was a Navy chief and UDT frogman in WWII. 

You can read my piece on the Navy's UDT frogmen in WWII and how they influenced the modern Navy SEALs via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/06/a-look-back-at-world-war-ii-us-navy.html 

You can click on the above photos to enlarge. 

Cosa Nostra: A Look Back At The Threat Of Organized Crime In America

Back in 2018 I wrote a piece on the history and the threat of Cosa Nostra organized crime in America for Counterterrorism magazine.

You can read the piece above and below (click on the page to enlarge): 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Look Back At The 30 Assault Unit, The British WWII Commando Group Created By Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming, The Creator Of James Bond

Back in 2011 Counterterrorism magazine ran my piece on Ian Fleming and the British commando group he created in World War II.

Before he sat down at his desk at his Jamaican villa Goldeneye in 1952 and wrote the classic James Bond thrillers, Ian Fleming served as a Royal Navy intelligence officer during World War II.

Commander Fleming served as the personal assistant to the Director of British Royal Naval Intelligence and one of Fleming's accomplishments during the war was the creation of a naval intelligence-commando group called the 30 Assault Unit. 

You can read my piece above and below:

  

Note: You can click on the above to enlarge. 

The U.S. Takedown of Russian and Chinese Hackers

Counterterrorism magazine published my piece on the American takedown of Russian and Chinese hackers.

You can read the pages above and below or the following text: 

The U.S. intelligence community often warns Americans about foreign computer system hackers. Some of the hackers are criminals, corrupting computer systems for fun and profit, and some are state-sponsored hackers looking to undermine American government and business institutions.

Russia and China are the usual suspects when state-sponsored computer intrusions are noted. Thankfully, the U.S. had some success in thwarting them.   

Back in April, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other federal agencies co-sealed an FBI public service announcement, “Russian GRU Exploiting Vulnerable Routers to Steal Sensitive Information.”

The public service announcement accompanied an announcement from U. S. Attorney David Metcalf in Philadelphia, the Department of Justice, and the FBI that a court-authorized technical operation to neutralize the U.S. portion of a network of small office/home office (SOHO) routers compromised by a unit within Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU: Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenis) Military Unit 26165, also known as APT28, Sofacy Group, Forest Blizzard, Pawn Storm, Fancy Bear, and Sednit.

The GRU is the Russian military intelligence agency that operates worldwide alongside the Russian foreign intelligence agency the SVR, which is essentially the old First Main Directorate of the old KGB.

The GRU, the military group that includes the Spetsnaz special operations forces and the “wet work” unit that murdered a Russians defector with radiation poisoned tea, also employs full-time hackers.       

According to Metcalf, the hacker unit used the routers to facilitate malicious Domain Name System (DNS) hijacking operations against worldwide targets of intelligence interest to the Russian government, including individuals in the military, government, and critical infrastructure sectors.

“Since at least 2024, GRU actors have exploited known vulnerabilities to steal credentials for thousands of TP-Link routers worldwide. The actors then accessed many of these compromised routers without authorization and manipulated their settings to redirect DNS requests to GRU-controlled servers - i.e., malicious DNS resolvers. GRU actors were indiscriminate in their initial targeting and manipulation of routers. The actors then implemented an automated filtering process to determine which DNS requests were of interest and warranted interception. For select targets, the GRU’s DNS resolvers provided fraudulent DNS records for specific domains that mimicked legitimate services — including Microsoft Outlook Web Access — to facilitate Actor-in-the-Middle attacks against encrypted victim network traffic. In doing so, the GRU actors harvested unencrypted passwords, authentication tokens, emails, and other sensitive information from devices on the same network as the compromised TP-Link routers,” the announcement stated.

“Russian military intelligence once again hijacked Americans’ hardware to commandeer critical data,” said Metcalf. “In the face of continued aggression by our nation-state adversaries, the U.S. government will respond just as aggressively. Working with the FBI — and our partners around the world — we are committed to disrupting and exposing such threats to our nation’s cybersecurity.”

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg added. “The GRU’s predatory use of networks in American homes and businesses for its malicious cyber operations remains a serious and persistent threat,” said “NSD will continue to use every tool at our disposal to detect such intrusions and expel hostile foreign actors from our Nation’s networks.”

“Operation Masquerade — led by FBI Boston — is the latest example of how we’re defending our homeland from Russia’s GRU, which weaponized routers owned by unsuspecting Americans in more than 23 states to steal sensitive government, military, and critical infrastructure information,” said Special Agent in Charge Ted E. Docks, of the FBI’s Boston Field Office. “The FBI utilized cutting edge technology and leveraged our private sector and international partners to unmask this malicious activity and remediate routers. Now we’re asking everyone who has a router to secure it, update its firmware, and replace it if needed. By working together, we can guard against nefarious nation state actors trying to compromise our national security.”

“Operation Masquerade demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to identifying, exposing, and disrupting the Russian government's efforts to compromise American devices, steal sensitive information, and target critical infrastructure,” said Assistant Director Brett Leatherman of FBI’s Cyber Division. “GRU actors compromised routers in the US and around the world, hijacking them to conduct espionage. Given the scale of this threat, sounding the alarm wasn't enough. The FBI conducted a court-authorized operation to harden compromised routers across the United States. We urge all router owners to take the remediation steps outlined today, because defending our networks requires all of us. The FBI will continue to use its authorities to identify and impose costs on state-sponsored actors who target the American people.”

According to court documents unsealed in Philadelphia, the FBI developed a series of commands to send to compromised routers in the United States, designed to collect evidence regarding the GRU actors’ activity, reset DNS settings (i.e., remove GRU DNS resolvers and force routers to obtain legitimate DNS resolvers from their Internet Service Providers (ISPs)), and to otherwise prevent the GRU actors from exploiting the original means of unauthorized access.

As described in court documents, the government extensively tested the operation on firmware and hardware for affected TP-Link routers. Other than stymieing the GRU’s ability to access the routers, the operation did not impact the routers’ normal functionality or collect the legitimate users’ content information.

The court-authorized steps to remediate compromised routers can be reversed by legitimate users at any time through factory resets with hardware reset buttons. Legitimate users can also reverse changes by logging into web management pages and restoring desired settings (e.g., factory default settings).

Another case in point is when the U.S. Justice Department released information on the extradition of a Chinese hacker on April 27th.

The Justice Department announced that Xu Zewei, 34, of the People’s Republic of China was extradited to the United States and appeared in U.S. District Court in Houston on a nine-count indictment related to his involvement in computer intrusions between February 2020 and June 2021.

Certain of those computer intrusions allegedly are part of the HAFNIUM computer intrusion campaign that compromised thousands of computers worldwide, including in the United States. Other intrusions targeted U.S. COVID-19 research during the height of the pandemic. Xu is charged along with Zhang Yu, 44, who is also a PRC national.

According to court documents, officers of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security’s (MSS) Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) directed Xu to conduct this hacking. The MSS and SSSB are PRC intelligence services responsible for PRC’s domestic counterintelligence, non-military foreign intelligence, and aspects of the PRC’s political and domestic security. When Xu conducted the computer intrusions, he allegedly worked for a company named Shanghai Powerock Network Co. Ltd. (Powerock). Powerock was one of many “enabling” companies in the PRC that conducted hacking for the PRC government.

“The United States is committed to pursuing hackers who steal information from U.S. businesses and universities and threaten our cybersecurity,” said Assistant Attorney General Eisenberg. “I commend the prosecutors and investigators who have worked hard and sought justice for years in this investigation, and we look forward to proving our case in court.”

“Xu Zewei will stand in a federal courtroom to answer for crimes that struck at the heart of American science and security — allegedly stealing COVID-19 research from our universities when the world needed it most,” said Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck for the Southern District of Texas. “We have pursued this moment across years and continents, and the message this office sends today is the same one we sent when we first unsealed this indictment: we will work to protect the American people.”

“The extradition of Xu Zewei demonstrates the FBI's reach extends well beyond U.S. borders,” said FBI Assistant Director Leatherman. “Xu will now answer for his alleged role in HAFNIUM, a group responsible for a vast intrusion campaign directed by China's Ministry of State Security that compromised more than 12,700 U.S. organizations. He is one of many contractors the Chinese government uses to obscure its hand in cyber operations, and others who do the same face the same risk. The FBI thanks our Italian law enforcement colleagues, especially the Polizia Postale, whose partnership led to Xu's arrest in Milan and his extradition to the United States.”

According to court documents, in early 2020, Xu and his co-conspirators hacked and otherwise targeted U.S.-based universities, immunologists, and virologists conducting research into COVID‑19 vaccines, treatment, and testing. Xu and others reported their activities to officers in the SSSB who were supervising and directing the hacking activities. For example, on or about Feb. 19, 2020, Xu provided an SSSB officer with confirmation that he had compromised the network of a research university located in the Southern District of Texas.

On or about Feb. 22, 2020, the SSSB officer directed Xu to target and access specific email accounts (mailboxes) belonging to virologists and immunologists engaged in COVID-19 research for the university. Xu later confirmed for the SSSB officer that he acquired the contents of the researchers’ mailboxes.

The charges further allege that beginning in late 2020, Xu and his co-conspirators exploited certain vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server, a widely used Microsoft product for sending, receiving, and storing email messages. Their exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server was at the forefront of a massive campaign targeting thousands of computers worldwide and known publicly as “HAFNIUM.” In March 2021, Microsoft publicly disclosed the intrusion campaign by state-sponsored hackers operating out of China. Throughout March 2021, Microsoft and other industry partners released detection tools, patches, and other information to assist victim entities in identifying and mitigating this cyber incident. Additionally, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a Joint Advisory on Compromise of Microsoft Exchange Server on March 10, 2021. However, by the end of March 2021, hundreds of web shells remained on certain U.S.-based computers running Microsoft Exchange Server software.

In April 2021, the Justice Department announced a court-authorized operation to remediate hundreds of computers in the United States made vulnerable by HAFNIUM actors. On July 21, 2021, the United States and foreign partners attributed the HAFNIUM campaign to the PRC’s MSS.

Among the victims of Xu’s alleged exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server were another university located in the Southern District of Texas and a law firm with offices worldwide, including in Washington, D.C. After exploiting computers running Microsoft Exchange Server, Xu and his co-conspirators installed web shells on them to enable their remote administration. The indictment alleges that these web shells were specific to HAFNIUM actors at the time. As with the earlier COVID-19 research intrusions, Xu and Zhang worked together on the HAFNIUM intrusions, under the supervision and direction of SSSB officers. For example, on or about Jan. 30, 2021, Xu confirmed to Zhang that he had compromised the other university’s network. Later, on or about Feb. 28, 2021, Xu updated a SSSB officer on his successful intrusions. This SSSB officer then directed Xu to obtain a list of other, successful intrusions from a second SSSB officer. Unauthorized access to the law firm’s network allowed Xu and his co-conspirators to steal information from mailboxes and search them for information regarding specific U.S. policy makers and government agencies. Their search terms included “Chinese sources,” “MSS,” and “HongKong.”

As described in the July 2025 announcement of charges against Xu, the PRC uses an extensive network of private companies and contractors in China to hack and steal information in a manner that obscured the PRC government’s involvement. Operating from their safe haven and motivated by profit, this network of private companies and contractors in China cast a wide net to identify vulnerable computers, exploit those computers, and then identify information that it could sell directly or indirectly to the PRC government. This largely indiscriminate approach results in more victims in the United States and elsewhere, more systems worldwide left vulnerable to future exploitation by third parties, and more stolen information, often of no interest to the PRC government and, therefore, sold to other third parties.

“Xu is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count; conspiracy to cause damage to and obtain information by unauthorized access to protected computers, to commit wire fraud, and to commit identity theft, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison; two counts of obtaining information by unauthorized access to protected computers, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison; two counts of intentional damage to a protected computer, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; and aggravated identity theft, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison,” the Justice Department stated.

 Zhang Yu, remains at large.

Paul Davis, a longtime contributor to the Journal, also writes the online Threatcon column.