Daily commentary about China by TIME correspondents.

Getting in Touch with My Feminine Virtual Alter Ego

A friend involved in Tibet issues writes to say that the latest in a constant stream of attacks on his email purportedly came from me. or at least my feminine side. He says he gets many of these kind of emails, which invariably ask him to open an attachment that almost certainly contains a type of virus called a Trojan horse that can hijack your computer, send out emails in your name, copy your hard drive, download pornography etc etc. This one was supposedly from "Simone Legant" and the attachment was the story I wrote recently about Beijing-Dalai Lama talks. My friend almost opened the attachment until he saw that I apparently had undergone a sex change. He assumes that it's from Chinese hackers who want to mess up his computer--and him-- because they see him as pro-Tibetan. Bottom line: don't open attachments!

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