BEIJING, CHINA – The Chinese military today abandoned its planned Operation DRAGON BYTE, a massive Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack on the US Army’s main computer network, Army Knowledge Online (AKO).

“When we tried to hack in, we were surprised to discover that AKO was already offline,” said Wei Wei Bak, a PLA programmer who often boasts of his exploits on hacker message boards.

“At first, our intelligence believed the Americans had shut down the site because they had advance knowledge of the impending cyber attack. Or maybe that the North Koreans had hacked them first. But it turns out that AKO really does suck that badly.”

“Their ineptitude really is their best security,” he added.

Iran, which has boosted its cyberwarfare capabilities in the wake of the recent Stuxnet virus, had previously intruded into the AKO network.

Mahmoud, a 16-year old Iranian hacker, dreamed of slicing into classified US military networks.

“I thought I’d be uncovering the secrets of Stuxnet, or their stealth drones.”

But when Mahmoud hacked into AKO, he found none of that.

“I thought that AKO was where the US military solicited the ‘bottom-up feedback’ and ‘disruptive thinking‘ that it prided itself on. Instead, I found message boards filled with religious propaganda and lonely guys trying to solicit dates.”

Mahmoud found it interesting that, despite the US military’s regulations against adultery, several service members, using their government-issued accounts, used the service to find “swingers” in their local area.

“It must be that AKO is so awful, that commanders won’t even bother logging in to monitor their troops for trouble,” concluded Mahmoud. “It’s the last place they’d bother to look.”

Mahmoud said he had no trouble getting through AKO’s “security questionnaire,” which requires all users to answer a series of personal questions, such as “What is your favorite movie?”

“The distractor answers were laughably absurd. What 18-year old guy is going to say his favorite movie is ‘The Bridges of Madison County’?”

The PLA was also forced to cancel its cyber-attack on the Defense Department’s online payroll service, MyPay.

“We were going to hack MyPay so badly that the entire Defense Department wouldn’t receive their paychecks next month,” said Colonel Lin. “But, with the debt limit approaching, I think we can count on the House of Representatives to take care of that for us.”

When notified of the foiled plot, General Keith Alexander, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, said “I think this just goes to show us that we need to be ever more vigilant. Longer passwords and more virtual keyboards are a small price to pay for our outstanding cyber security.”