The political dispute between the US and China appears to be being taken to new extremes in cyberspace as hacking and defacing organisations on both sides are threatening international cyber-attacks.

Over the last few weeks one defacement crew, Poizonb0x, has hit nearly 200 Chinese domains, and although no political messages were posted to the sites, only Chinese domains are being singled out for attack and it doesn't look coincidental.

On the other hand, Chinese cracker groups have declared that they are planning a week-long attack on US websites starting on 1 May. Security professionals and other hackers have criticised the actions on both sides for breeding hate between the nations, and pegged the defacements as "scalp collecting".

Anti-China hackers have issued a call to arms to "wreak havoc on China's servers", while Chinese hackers are planning to treat next week as "hack the USA" week.

But if attacks on such a scale were taking place in the physical world, it would be considered akin to terrorist actions. They have already prompted calls for an international cyber police force similar to the UK's National Hi-Tech Unit but on a larger scale.