A photo from weibo user “Mao Lanlanlan” on April 15, shows dead sparrows on the ground in a residential area in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province. Mobile phone pictures of the 10 dead sparrows went viral on social media and show how hard it is for the authorities to cover up a bird flu outbreak in the Internet age.Photos of 10 dead sparrows on a Chinese pavement which went viral on social media and drew a swift official response show how hard covering up a bird flu outbreak would be in the Internet age.China has won international praise for its transparency on the H7N9 strain, which has killed 14 people so far, in sharp contrast to criticism for trying to conceal the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic.

Disconnected computer monitors are seen at a visitors center at the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) headquarters in Seoul on March 20, 2013. Wednesday’s concerted cyber attack against South Korean broadcasters and banks originated from an IP address in China, but the identity of the hackers cannot be confirmed, officials said Thursday.South Korea said Thursday it had sourced a damaging cyber attack on its broadcasters and banks to an IP address in China, fuelling suspicions that North Korea may have been responsible.Previous online attacks blamed on North Korea—including one last year on the computer network of the conservative JoongAng newspaper in Seoul—have also been tracked back to Chinese sources.

For technology that was supposed to ignore borders, bring the world closer together, and sidestep the influence of national governments the Internet is fostering an awful lot of nationalism right now. We’ve started to see increased concern about the country of origin of IT products and services; U.S