strange this old article is on the front page; people might be also interested in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1072995 which takes this idea in a slightly different direction (ie big brother helps crooks) which was news to me (see my comment there).
And apparently it was stolen technology from a US firm: http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/45303-us-fi...
And of course said firm was cyber-attacked afterwards.