Software piracy is still kind of teenage vandalism or crime of fraud, but more computer attacks are backed by a State or politically motivated, say the experts.
The recent acts of piracy against Google and others, attributed to hackers based in China, raised new questions about the role of governments in such operations.
Google threatened to pull out of China after the attack "very sophisticated" directed against Chinese human rights activists. The Internet giant firm said it had "proof that the main objective was the same internet access Gmail accounts" of those activists.
"Typically, the computer offender is violating the intellectual property, obtain financial information or money. This may not seem so," says Paul Craig, a consultant to the New Zealand Security-Assessment.com signature.
In his opinion, "this raises the possibility of an attack orchestrated by a government against individuals."
Politically motivated hackers were released in the past in attacking the portal to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shinto shrine where war criminals are honored Japanese.
Google does not openly accused the Chinese government's attack she suffered. "It is difficult to prove that an event is linked to a state-orchestrated piracy," he explains on his blog Chester Wisniewski, director of computer security firm Sophos.
However, "Google believes that you have evidence that this is the case, otherwise there would be publicly announced such an attack," he said.
Other experts, however, that the attack on Google might not have true political motivations.
"In general, Internet users in China are young, many even teenagers, and they can organize attacks which often puerile reasons," said Masaki Ishiguro, Mitsubishi Research Institute.
"The policy or freedom of expression can sometimes be just an excuse for young pirates", he estimates.
Either way, one thing is certain: the hackers are becoming more sophisticated. Last July, the United States, the gates of the White House, State Department and Pentagon were targeted in coordinated attacks that also affected South Korean sites.
Seoul then accused North Korea.
"Cyber attacks are now a large scale, and are organized in ever more minute," said Judy Wu, a researcher at consulting firm IDC Asia Pacific in Hong Kong.
She said, "many computer attacks are clearly supported by States and white are both large companies competing countries and their state institutions or its armed forces.
The technology security company McAfee also noted in 2009, in a virtual crime reports, that many acts of piracy and infiltration of networks States seemed to have at home, and point to policy objectives.
"We have not seen an open information warfare between great powers, but the efforts of states to acquire sophisticated cyber attack capabilities, and in some cases proven willingness to use them, let me think that perhaps has already started a 'cyber cold ' "says the document.
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