Slashdot Mirror
Google Hacked, May Pull Out of China
D H NG writes "Following a sophisticated attack on Google infrastructure originating from China late last year, Google has decided to take 'a new approach' to China. In their investigation, Google found that more than 20 large companies had been infiltrated and dozens of Chinese human rights activists' Gmail accounts had been compromised. Google has decided to 'review the feasibility of [its] business operations in China,' no longer censoring results in Google.cn, and if necessary, to 'shut down Google.cn, and potentially [Google's] offices in China.'"
Couple this with Slashdot's coverage of a Baidu site hacker takeover and the constant claims of a "Don't be evil" violation for following Chinese censorship demands on google.cn... maybe there just isn't any money to be made there without problems that threaten Google's reputation that it cashes in with elsewhere. So much for free trade... this means info-technology war.
Why wait?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Google has been skirting the edge of their "don't be evil" policy with China since the start. If you have to censor your search results, it's not worth the trouble.
I honestly want to know.
What would the impact of Google pulling out of China mean to citizens? How popular was Google, compared to Baidu, Bing, Yahoo, etc. in the Chinese web search space?
My guess: Google stops censoring itself, gaining credibility for its belatedly 'principled' stand against the Chinese government, while sending a message to China that hacking its servers is Not Polite. China predictably steps in to filter the search results using its own mechanisms, relieving Google of the burden. Google gets to keep its advertising revenue, while the users behind the Great Firewall get (at best) the same censorship as before. Now if Google really wants to make a point, with a genuine and serious risk of losing business, how about making google.cn an exclusively SSL site and seeing how fast China blocks it..?
I mean, we wouldn't want to impregnate China, would we?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
This is as close to "do no evil" as they have come in years. Way to grow some balls Google!
have some backbone and SHOW us that you can lead and not just follow, google.
exit entirely from that hell-hole known as china.
in fact, it may turn out that they need you more than you need them. wouldn't THAT be a nice thing to know!
more and more, I'm hating china. anything that hurts them is GOOD, I figure.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
How long till they hax0r /. ???
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.
Oh so now they are going to discuss censorship with the Chinese. And they didn't decide to do this before? And it never occurred to them that the intelligence agencies of foreign governments would spy on them?
This all smells of some PR stunt. After investing billions in China and bending over violently for commie murderers, they still got their asses handed to them by Baidu. This is their way of pulling out of a losing market while looking like good guys.
Try typing in Tiananmen Square on google.cn!!!
It wont work much longer :(
The lesson is simple: Work with evil and evil will still screw you over. It took Google wrong enough to realize this. There's a real temptation to Godwin this with a comparison to Neville Chamberlain. But the result is clear: Google tried to cooperate with China in hope that some good with come of a compromise policy. The end result is that the Chinese still tried to infiltrate Google to serve its censorious, abusive ends.
Let's see some others follow suit.
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
I don't know how much of my comment history is available at present, but it doesn't seem that long ago that I was commenting that Google is not to be trusted because they are a corporation and they are all about advertising revenue. The fact that they have capitulated to China in the past was reaffirming to my perspective.
But if this story plays out and Google pulls out of China based on the Chinese government's persecution of descenters, opposition and critics, then I have to say that Goggle will actually start changing my mind about them after all. And I have to say, just like many others, changing my mind about something is not particularly easy to do -- but if they do this, I will be PLEASANTLY surprised.
In addition to that, any U.S. company that fails to take a similar approach to dealing with China is simply without balls by comparison.
I can see why Google are doing this. You cannot do business effectively in a country where the the government is actively trying to attack your systems. Also, it affected human rights advocates in Europe and the U.S. also, so it puts all of Google's operations at risk. From a pure business perspective, western companies would be worried that data stored with Google will get into the hands of their Chinese competitors.
does a US company do business with regimes with poor human rights records?
specifically, does an internet company help such a government with restrictions on freedoms?
what if the company's motto is "don't be evil"?
score one for human rights
and score one for google's integrity
today is a good day
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
Clarence Darrow
Translation: "We were cool with doing business with you, even effacing our own corporate values, because your country is a lucrative market. But it wasn't enough for us to be cooperative -- you got in our servers and messed with our stuff. And you know what -- that'll cost us more in our reputation and business costs than you're worth, so goodbye."
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
largest market in the world, and you think they will just walk away?
Chinese intelligence hacked Google.
Google realized the Chinese government cannot be trusted.
Google then posts this.....
... encryption of the files while stored on their end. If the emails were just-in-time decrypted only while you were logged in and actually viewing them, email searches and context-advertising could still work, but while logged off, your emails wouldn't be readable by hostile parties, even after they hacked in.
(Or am I confused, and gmail encrypts the data on their end?)
I wonder how many activists will suffer torture or worse now because of this. Sad.
Go to bed with itchy bum, wake up with smelly finger!
The Iranian Cyber Army strikes again! First Baidu then Google!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Seems to me like China has not "screwed over" Google in any way. An organized attack fails to penetrate Gmail, and gets e-mails from other third party sources for select individuals.
I'm certainly an advocate of freedom of speech, but branding China as "evil" is some serious overstatement. It's a country that has historically struggled with providing basic necessities and a reasonable standard of living to its ridiculously huge number of people.
It shouldn't be a surprise that China, preoccupied more with material matters than information, has lagged in catching on to the importance of intellectual property and freedom of speech. Google's actions are a good thing for both Google and China - they're peacefully protesting China's harmful policies in a way that actually may make a difference.
By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA did some similar hacking operations on suspected terrorists in violation with freedom-of-whatever laws. They probably just get caught less.
thats exactly the reaction they want from you. evil, evil google.
... or I will, with you.
There, the full Google motto, disclosed at last.
I don't think it's so much about doing the right thing as it is Google not being fond of the government hacking their servers. Governments wield a lot of power and if they're going to be attacking your company (ie. your revenue) then it only makes sense to GTFO.
...I'd have pegged the Yes Men all over this story. As it stands, this may be a cynical business move, or this may be Google finally realizing just who they've been in bed with this whole time, but either way's a win.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
I'm switching back to google.com as my search provider now. I mean, I was using bing (what a horrible alternative), but didn't like the fact google was keeping all that personal history that microsoft doesn't. Since they both did business with china, then I'd go with MS ... but now, back to google!
you have to have bandwidth and frankly the links in and out of china are pretty bad....
I wonder if google.com.hk has these problems or if the crawlers had problems...
after all the dns results do not match for all resolvers and sometimes results in tw rather than USA
I am actually in favour of not capitulating and doing what google shareholders would like....
regards
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk
I want to be able to know which addresses have connected to my account, or, more importantly, who *tried* to access it. The information is there. Why not show it? It would allow one to immediately find out someone's trying to break in.
"Screw you guys, I'm going home."
About time.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Why wouldn't hackers working for a government intelligence agency bounce their connections through servers (or personal computers) they previously hacked in another country? I guess in this case it's more obvious who is doing the spying by looking at the people being targeted. Unless of course the whole point of this hack was to upset Google/China relations (and neither party was necessarily involved).
Perhaps the bouncing of connections around the world has been deprecated by international submarine cable taps? Or more likely, China is too arrogant to bother with masking their intentions?
It's a weird thing to say about a for-profit corporation, but I should say that I am proud of them putting principles before profits.
I agree. I have felt for quite some time that while Google is not "evil", they are a corporation and are not to be trusted. However, this action sheds a new light on Google. Google was willing to compromise with China and censor their results. However, Google considers that people's email accounts are not to be accessed by those not authorized to do so. It is clear to me from Google's reaction to the hacking of dissenters' email accounts that Google believes this was the act of the Chinese government and is willing to act as if that is proven.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This move seems more like payback than it does taking the moral high ground.
1) Chinese govt (or someone with similar motives) breaks into Google infrastructure
2) Google discovers it
3) Google makes a move that will upset the Chinese govt (unfiltered search results)
Payback pure and simple.
is even remotely comparable to that of the usa's, i could describe your thinking in certain diplomatic terms, but i'll just go with the more direct and honest route: you're a fucking moron
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The government still controls the .cn TLD, and they could take over the domain or remove it from the root zone at a whim.
China isn't playing fair, so Google is playing hardball.
If their government attacks and infiltrates Google's infrastructure, Google should indeed think twice about obeying its ridiculous censorship whims.
Google had a great reputation with its "Do no evil" motto. And then they went into China and they lost it.
What is worth more to google. A great reputation in the west and no business in China, or a sullied reputation in the west and lousy business in China that may be cut off any day when the government chances its mind? You seem to assume like many others that doing business in China is easy, just follow the rules and you make a profit. But that is not the case. You IP is an open target, the government can change the rules whenever it wants and the local competition is heavily entwined with the state.
That makes for a difficult operating environment. It is indeed a brave move by Google to go against the Wall Street mentality of "a penny today" but long term it might be the wisest move they ever make. At least they are sending a signal that there are limits. It seems that at the end of the crisis, something might be changing. Even the US seems to be considering to tax banks... unthinkable in the past. New firms are starting up that claim they will things different and now google being the first to question the Wall Street wisdom that doing business in China is worth everything.
And as for enormous. China only passed Germany this year in exports. The market really ain't all that large. Large parts of it are dirt poor and the rest works for pennies. India is equal in population size and a lot more open. You don't see everyone bending over backwards for India do you? Wall Street loves China, no meddling human rights to upset things, simple rules. But Wall Street has shown it doesn't know shit.
I am frankly surprised at reading this story. Either we soon will get an update that this guy was fired or Google is very serious about this. Because somewhere in China, someone just fainted. The Chinese government does NOT want google to just disappear because of its actions, the average Chinese person doesn't really believe that censorship affects him/her personally. It is just for troublemakers. When google goes (and with that youtube etc etc) it will be noticed far more clearly then some dissident being locked up.
Who knew, Google might actually life up to its motto "Do no evil". Wonder what other companies will do... If Google follows-up on this, MS apologists lost a major piece of ammunition.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm ready to stop buying Chinese, if possible. I've already stopped buying products manufactured in China if they are for my daughter. Anyone want to start on-shore manufacturing? Seems like German toys and French health products are the only alternative.
I always thought that it was overblown. Is presenting non-working links in search results to Chinese users THAT better than no such links at all?
all the moral relativists will be saying you can't possibly be trying to extend american style rights and freedoms to china. that you have no right to do that and (my favorite part): trying to extend liberties in countries outside the usa is imperialism (!?)
<sarcasm>
you westerners can't possibly judge china because it has a complex history and culture you will never fully understand. you should be sensitive to interesting cultural differences that makes the world an exciting place, like: the chinese enjoy being slaves of the state. that the chinese don't like individualism. that's just a western thing. the chinese like being in a giant harmonious ant colony. the chinese are like worker robots and they like it that way. because of complex historical and cultural reasons you can never grasp. the mandarins of imperial china were highly bureaucratic and so you see the chinese like this highly regimented "harmony". so just accept it. ignore those pesky calls for human rights. clearly tools of western imperialism
</sarcasm>
what you need to do is suck up to the grumpy old technocrats in beijing, like every other kiss ass:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30292772/
thank you google, for not being that kiss ass, FINALLY
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people die in Haiti due to a massive earthquake and we're talking about Google?
Get some PRIORITIES!
Agreed, if Google pulls out then Yahoo/Bing will be heavily pressured to take the high road too.
As a matter of fact, given MS's hardon for China lately, it seems like a cunning way for Google to undercut their efforts. Especially combined with all the turmoil that will result naturally from the Yahoo-MS merger. Slick.
All of it's Chinese offices to Taiwan. That will really piss off China. And Taiwan is *much* friendlier than China.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.
Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.
Get the headline right. It was an attempt, but as usual hacking Google was not successful.
Mine and many other gmail accounts were recently phished from an attacker in China. There was no Gmail team response from our forum enquiry, and my trust in Google has diminished. Wonder if it was related. link to Help Forum post: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?fid=60c285d7fd88344700047cbca10a559d&hl=en
Mods?
blogspot.com is blocked in China so I cannot view the linked site, sh*t
Google says: "Fuck China"
Best damn hooker I've ever had.
And it's been going on for hundreds of years. You are wise to point this out, and I salute you, sir.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I don't know how much of my comment history is available at present, but it doesn't seem that long ago that I was commenting that Google is not to be trusted because they are a corporation and they are all about advertising revenue. The fact that they have capitulated to China in the past was reaffirming to my perspective.
But if this story plays out and Google pulls out of China based on the Chinese government's persecution of descenters, opposition and critics, then I have to say that Goggle will actually start changing my mind about them after all. And I have to say, just like many others, changing my mind about something is not particularly easy to do -- but if they do this, I will be PLEASANTLY surprised.
In addition to that, any U.S. company that fails to take a similar approach to dealing with China is simply without balls by comparison.
I think you are giving google far to much credit if you believe their reasons here are human rights. Google has failed miserably in china, just about every search engine has kicked their arse, especially baidu, more likely google has realised they need to pull out of the their and by using this PR stunt they can do so and come out looking like the good guy rather than just another failed business venture.
And then do some research on how language and culture intermingle with each other to produce certain characteristics in society. Then come back to me and we'll talk about your disdain for moral relativism. Like it or not, nothing is absolute and everything to some degree is relative.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I don't really read much (or as much) into this as some might suggest.
From the parent post: ... Google has decided to 'review the feasibility of [its] business operations in China,' ..."
"
I see: 'Google is looking at the China operation, and is planning to revise it's strategy there.'
" ... [consider] no longer censoring results in Google.cn, and if necessary, to 'shut down Google.cn, and potentially [Google's] offices in China. ..."
I see: 'We're approaching this without assumptions or limits. All options are on the table. We're doing this to foster the widest possible debate and the widest possible set of solutions, because that is the best way to approach any problem.'
I don't see 'Google may pull out of China.' That is only possible, let alone likely, if no other solution arises as a result of the review, which I find very unlikely indeed.
Somewhat unrelated to the above: ... Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves. ..."
From TFA:
"
In other words, they did achieve their objective; they got two accounts of human rights activists and the subject lines, which certainly can be incriminating to a paranoid security apparatus looking to focus on individuals with further investigation. There is no reason to assume, as Google seems to, that the objective was to hack into every human rights activist's account. One lead may be all that's required to mark the operation a success by the perpetrators or their masters.
" ... Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers. ..."
Same as previous comment. Not just two, but dozens of accounts were compromised. There is no reason to believe that a successful operation, which involved hacking of mail accounts in general, required the attack on gMail to be more effective than any other vector.
" ... We launched Google.cn in January 2006 [...]. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China. ... * ..."
The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard
Translation: 'We have hesitated to reconsider our approach to China, because it's a potential Gold Mine. But we're trying to figure out how to still mine the Gold and stand up for our principles, which we've either previously compromised on, or ignored, in order to continue to earn revenue, or exploit the revenue potential, from China.'
* This line goes here: ... We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. ..."
Translation: 'We're not going anywhere, but we're unilaterally violating the deal we made with Chinese Authorities, so we might get kicked out.'
Why would the Iranian Cybercafe Army want to blow up Chinese dissidents? Besides, everyone knows it was the Illuminati.
it does not override, modify, or negate basic human rights
if there is in fact as aspect of culture, any culture, western, indian, russian, whatever, that is an aborgation of human rights, then it is up to you, if you consider yourself someone with a sense of principles, to oppose it
i'm not saying that the chinese should eat mcdonalds, i'm saying- hell, the CHINESE are saying (as in, the actual chinese, not their autocrats) that the chinese deserve HUMAN RIGHTS
there's a reason its called HUMAN rights, and not american rights or western rights
you are truly one deluded fool if cultural differences excuses gross violations of basic human dignity
what is your take on clitorectomies? is that west african tradition something to be respected, or fought? if you fight it, are you simply a cultural imperialist, an ethnocentric westerner?
do you believe that if you cross the straights of bosporus or the straights of gibraltar or the rio grande and *snap*, magic! human beings are fundamentally different and gross violations of human rights should be respected as quaint local custom?
i am not an american. i am a human being. it is in fact, those who think of themselves as american first, and a human second, or a brazilian first, and a human second, or a muslim first, and a human second, or whatever, that is the source of all the suffering in this world. what random arbitrary tribal boundary you are born within is a far, far secondary consideration to your allegiance to your HUMANITY. or, at least it should be. too many in this world have that backwards, and they are the source of our problems
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Looks like maybe Baidu was also hacked. By different people, for different reasons. Anyone able to confirm?
Which in turn means that there might be something else at play.
Reading some of the news coming out about hackers in China, I get the impression that there might be unofficial sanctioning or sponsorship by the government of some Chinese hacker groups.
It also strikes me as a little off that a company announces it 'might' pull out of a country. Usually, these decisions are made internally and press conferences are called to either announce or deny that something is going to happen. If you are a company like Google, you don't openly call the government for hacking and spying. I wonder if this is Google telling the government that it won't put up with their shit?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Who is this "them" that you hate? The country as a whole? The internet users? China's government? There are more than a billion people in China, do you hate all of them individually? Does your hate include children, open source programmers, priests, movie makers, democracy activists, camel drivers, nurses, day care workers, bicycle repairmen, and secretaries for local government?
Do you hate the Chinese language? I hear it's hard to learn. How about Chinese culture? China has a rich tradition in the visual arts and one of the world's great literatures extending back more than 2000 years. Do you hate Chinese sports? Did Ding Junhui beat one of your favorite snooker players this season?
Perhaps you hate the Chinese government including the party old guard and reformers. You must really despise those who wish they were serving their fellow citizens with a transparent, accountable, representative government.
The NY Times cites James Malvenon as saying this is a new development in the practice of cyber warfare. Your jingoistic response suits the context of war perfectly. This was a bad move by someone in China and could hurt everyone involved. To paraphrase Ken Waltz, there's no victory in war, just degrees of defeat.
China will gradually become a fully participating member of the international community. Who that will benefit remains to be seen, but one way or another it's going to happen. It is bad news that as the Chinese government stretches its muscles and experiments with its growing power that it engages in this kind of aggression against private foreign companies. However, something to notice: this story is about China's domestic politics and controlling internal dissent, not about any international conflict. This is why everyone outside China has a stake in the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Chinese citizens and the Chinese state's strict limits on those freedoms. The importance of a country's internal affairs to the world as a whole might remind you of global attitudes toward another economic powerhouse on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
If you are trying to cooperate with the locals, and they catch you abruptly from behind and have their way with you, then you suddenly 1. want to take a shower, 2. get a medical checkup, 3. not play with them (nicely or otherwise) anymore, and 4. avoid them at all costs. If they try to approach you, get away. They can't be trusted. At. All. There are services you are willing to provide, but not at any cost. If you are cooperating with their requests at significant time and expense, and they still catch you from behind, they are not worth the trouble of doing business with. China is bumming Google, and apparently others. TCP/IP may have enough holes for the Chinese Government to go whherever it wants, but if reasonable lockdowns don't keep them from wrecking stuff, or stealing stuff, then time to pull out till either they play nice, or till you can (for sure) slam the door on them.
Leave stupid Chinese gov. But please not leave Chinese people.
Looks like Adobe could have been one of the other said targets in the cyber attack. Adobe was just issued this press release today:
Adobe Investigates Corporate Network Security Issue
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/01/adobe_investigates_corporate_n.html
Posted by Pooja Prasad on January 12, 2010 3:16 PM
Adobe became aware on January 2, 2010 of a computer security incident involving a sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies. We are currently in contact with other companies and are investigating the incident. At this time, we have no evidence to indicate that any sensitive information--including customer, financial, employee or any other sensitive data--has been compromised. We anticipate the full investigation will take quite some time to complete. We have and will continue to use information gained from this attack to make infrastructure improvements to enhance security for Adobe, our customers and our partners.
http://www.object404.com
Return all the search results with information about privacy concerns, censorship by the government, hacking into human rights activists' mail accounts, Tiananmen, lying about the age of athletes, IP theft, human organ trafficking, small wages, lying leaders... everything, possibly with video on youtube. Rub their noses in it all the way. With gusto.
It is always better to be a first grade version of yourself than a second grade version of someone else.
Google has insider information - analyzing data passing through Google services - that a regime change is on the horizon in China. Google is positioning itself for for the post Communist Party ruled China, by supporting the future leaders of the country.
Step #1: Visit www.baidu.com.
Step #2: Search for Google or blogspot.com. Note that both work.
Step #3: Now search for google.blogspot.com.
Step #4: Enjoy your Baidu lockout. You should be able to search again in 5-10 minutes, I haven't timed the duration exactly.
Google has a tangibles option. They could start not emphasizing ads as much as actually selling stuff themselves, ie a super amazon effort. They are starting now with their cellphone, this branching out..and there is nothing stopping them from going on to all sorts of other tangible products, which would make their advertising just a force multiplier instead of an economic end game, even if all they started out with was a profit sharing deal with ad buyers..
I work in ShangHai, I can say that many Chinese uses google.cn and most of them can't imagine google pulling out of China...
It's ironic to see that Google chose to post this on blogspot which is blocked in China!
Wait, hasn't Google been gaining market share in China?
If they're gaining market share, and have 25% market share, how are they getting their asses kicked?
there not gaining, they have been stagnant with inferior results for a long time, they were at 25% back in 2000, meanwhile Baidu has increased to over 60% marketshare now while google continues to stagnate despite massive investments in engineers and technology over there. basically their bang for buck is really bad over there.
Except make a blog post to swell Internet rumors.
That's it.
Call me when there's a FOR LEASE sign hanging off of Google China's office building... printed in Chinese characters with a characiture of a pixelated puppy next to it, of course.
With cyber-economic "wars" being waged between countries (or the haves vs. the have nots), corporate espionage, and multi-national corporation vs. governments, Whatever google's response to these actions from hackers will ultimately start the once touted fracturing of the Internet. Looking at the reason in this scenario, tiered and fragmented networks are coming and here to stay. That in the end, is sad.
when google gets up to nexus six, then maybe we have more to fear from google than china ;-P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus-6
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It is to Google's credit that they finally figured out the truth about China.
Of course, even truthier is the fact that China wants them gone anyhow, since they'd prefer to build their own little world inside their own little internet.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
let China FGITA (F*ck Google in the Ass), then we'll FCITA (F*ck China in the Ass), FGITA and FAITA (F*ck Apple in the Ass)! Then we'll FMITA (F*ck Microsoft in the Ass) twice! Start doing it to them right now, it will make the world a better place.
P.S.: Learn these new F?ITA acronyms, I'll be using them a lot. A LOT I say!
There is no such thing as "free trade" with a non-free country. The US companies that control the US government want you to believe it's all about free trade and to avoid protectionism. It's not. It's about exploiting slave labor and executive bonuses. The last time this country addressed slave labor issue 200,000 americans lost their lives. --edfardos
Google appears to be a proud protector of the gmail accounts of China's Human Rights activists, when it says that "Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.".
Is this the same Google which Hands over IP addresses of activists to Indian Police ?
What about Google Sets Censorship Precedent In India ?
Mumbai Cyber Sleuths are a law unto themselves, ordering Americans around: Mumbai Police Order American to delete Cartoon
Why does Google co-operate so tamely with Mumbai Cyber police ? Why did Google hand over IPs in 2007 entangling an innocent man in the Police web ?
And yet talk of Human Rights in China ? Don't the Indians have Human Rights too ?
Wow, if youre gonna go the stealth nazi route, then you have to compare the evils of China to the evils of a country that has invaded and bombed 30-40 countries since the 1940s and who has helped overthrow about twice as many.
I mean if it pure evil that you can quantify, the US even beats out the nazis.
God its good to be able to go to the nazi well again.
thanks
you know where its legal for the government to read your emails
Clearly, you've never met an actual Chinese person. Do you honestly think they don't know what's going on? No, they know. They just don't care.
That's not entirely true. Often true, but not entirely.
In college I worked in a research group that was probably 80% Chinese. This was in the late 90s, when Internet as means of exchanging information was somewhat new. We worked shifts together monitoring experiments, which got boring, so naturally all of us swapped stories.
One of our research group was a Chinese visiting scholar, probably in his 40s. An American student asked him what he thought about Tienanmen. At first we thought he didn't understand what we were asking, but then it became clear - he'd never heard of this event. The government had successfully kept it from him.
This being the internet age, we quickly brought up the pictures of the event we're all familiar with now. It was one of the most memorable, but sad, experiences of my life to watch this guy go from denial to disbelief, learning that his government had committed atrocities against its people and covered it up. I can't really express how strongly that interaction affected me.
So unless things in China have changed drastically in the last 10 years - which is possible - China is still somewhat effective at keeping its people in the dark. And from what I experienced with our visiting scholar, there are Chinese people who care very much.
Sometimes money needs to take a back seat to ethics. Google seems to be one of the few companies that won't sell their soul to the highest bidder. Let's hope they stay that way.
For similar reason, China 'hacked' my forefather home. Destroy his family and he fleed.
Google should be doing so.
It sounds like there is a lot more information that has not been disclosed yet. It almost sounds like the Chinese government is somehow implicated in the attack, which would sound incredible if it didn't include the personal information of dissidents.
I will be attending a financial conference in Hong Kong this month. Just last week I asked a Japanese government executive negotiating with China is it really safe to invest there? As I am considering now.
You can be sure this topic will be one of the top issues discussed. It is very unfortunate indeed and is bound to involve disclosures from other companies in China as well, especially once they investigate the attacks on their own infrastructure.
Personally I hope that information about the vulnerabilities exploited will be shared so that other companies can patch their systems too.
This is quite a chilling incident and ratchets up the perceived risk of investment in China.
Incidentally I found something about Google leaving Japan in a blog post linked from the Google China homepage. Chinese Google Translate to English.
For a country that is home to the likes of Ming and Deng Xiao Ping,
a search engine called Bing would be king
Thanks, I'll be here all week!
It seems to me you're assigning veiled purposes to Google because that's what we've come to expect from everybody else. As far as I can tell Google is one of the few organizations that doesn't seem to work that way. They tell you what they want, like they told Garmin they wanted more freedom to work with the map data. Then when you tell them no, we don't want to let you do that as Garmin did, they respond like any multibillion dollar corporation would: they get what they want without you.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I for one welcome our new BAIDU overlords.
Is this the straw that finally breaks the camel's back for the "do no evil" company? Communism really is evil and China's government is no exception. (Oh, who knew?!) As a shareholder since the IPO I sincerely hope they follow through and pull out of any country that values human life less than vomit (yes, like China). It's worth the hit to the stock price - human life is infinitely more valuable.
It's not a big question, it's not even a question that hasn't been answered rather loudly and frequently.
Take a look at the revenues and profits of Coke and Pepsi in China. The two companies have 81% of the soft drink market.
From: http://moneymorning.com/2007/09/28/pepsi-goes-red-in-china/
And Pepsi, not Coke, was shrewd enough to realize it had to "shake things up" a bit in a market where Coke holds 51% of the soda market, to 30% for Pepsi, according to 2006 figures from the trade journal, Beverage Digest.
But the sales growth is enough to pop anyone’s lid. Coke last year sold 4.33 billion liters of carbonated drinks in China, a sales-volume jump of 70% over its results in 2000, according to market-researcher Euromonitor International and The Wall Street Journal. Pepsi sold 2.93 billion liters last year – 32% less than Coke but 93% better than it did in 2000.
It was surely an inside job. Google needs employees in China to manage the operations there. Even if you keep them under control, or if you send trusted employees from overseas, it's a huge hazard. The government in China has a really tight control of the population, and everyone is afraid of the government. I'm pretty sure it was easy for an insider to leak information, and I'm also pretty sure that the government isn't just buying the "yes, we will comply with your filter" response from Google, and is not only constantly monitoring search results, but also getting inside information about how things are being handled.
If you don't make a huge profit out of China, the rest of the world complains about the censorship you agreed to apply at search results, and you are risking trade secrets and being harassed, then the Chinese market isn't so interesting anymore.
If I were in Google's situation, I would gladly let those 300 millions a year go, and just leave China.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Google says themselves their Chinese operations are "immaterial". They have bigger fish (or should i say iFish) to fry. Also they've gotten some bad press recently. That little spat with France. Even managed to piss off Phillip K. Dick's estate. Making this little announcement gives them some credibility back with 1) people who actually believe companies like Google give a flying web search about "human rights" and 2) people who simply hate China with their hateful little hearts. If they really had cajones, they would cease any and all forms of business with China (including indirect business). That would be suicidal and most likely grossly unfair to China no matter what sorts of issues aforementioned 2 groups of people claim China has.
Heck, the west look the other side when the Chinese indulge in human rights violation. How do you think you get all your cheap products? It's precisely because they are manufactured in the sweat shops of china. The labour there is totally brutal and they work more than double the hours to earn their measly wages. It's all blood money finally. The west capitalizes on this to show bigger profits with heftier paychecks to its wall street analysts and the Chinese government installs a sense of pseudo capitalistic mindset in its peoples minds to make them deluded to think that they are becoming developed, socially as well as economically. Nothing can be farther from this load of shit.
China is not what you think it is, it's government is most tactically brutal in their suppression and decimation of individual rights. It will be high time before the west realises this.
Love the yellow title. Way to go!
Google's press release all but says so. How would anyone have a list of humans rights advocates, and care enough to even try and hack them? No money to gain directly from that.
Google should pull out of china, and then work with developers on software that lets people get around censorship.
Google gets hit by a hacker attack, and for that reason decides they're not going to do business inside an entire country anymore? This sounds extremely fishy. One of the richest tech companies in the world should have the money and know-how to establish peerlessly good electronic security...
...unless the people going after them are the Chinese government itself, in which case it would be reasonable for Google to believe that they will never have a safe haven for conducting operations in China without risking compromises to their security.
Who else but the government of China has the means (plenty of money), the motive (stopping Chinese human rights activists), and the opportunity (Google's conducting of operations within China) to scare Google this badly?
And people scoff at those whole point to China as a credible thread to the US. It seems pretty simple, China is playing the game of geopolitical and economic dominance to win. They abide by just enough rules to make the rest of the world look away, turning EU and the US into patsies while China builds their strength. In several decades if technology is not able to meet the growing demands for natural resources and energy China might be too strong for anyone, the US included, to stop them taking what they want by force (whether its overt force or not).
of course universal rights aren't universal everywhere, of course this is because of bullshit cultural practices everywhere
and? you're simply describing the problem. i know its a problem
meanwhile: do you think culture should or should not overrrule human rights?
of course it shouldn't
that's the goal
at one time, if you asked an american if slavery would ever be overturned, he would laugh at you. he would even say its part of american culture. it was very long and hard, but it was overturned
likewise, various bullshit cultural violations of human rights today will be overturned, slowly, and with great difficulty
its the only way forward in this world
but you don't ACCEPT these bullshit cultural violations, anywhere
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Why pull the plug just because of some cyber attacks? There are billions of cyber attacks from all of the world every day. Why single out those from China? The blog seems to imply the hand of Chinese government behind all these attacks, but never provides any evidence. Using the GhostNet spying report is even more naive. The report has serious flaws from the view point of academic research and is more about making media buzzes.
2. Using the example of the advocates of human rights is questionable. Google should let us know how many people's gmail accounts are attacked daily and how many of them are actually human rights advocates. Google has many PhDs, and I am sure they know quite well how to exaggerate things by simply forgetting showing the big picture.
To me, Google's decision is more about PR in US, rather than its political responsibility in China. Google is almost irrelevant to most Chinese Internet users. Many people here believe it is because of censorship. Actually, it is not that simple. Google's core business is built upon the availability of other people's information. Without openly accessible information, Google is nothing. Information in China is not open to Google. I have had conversations with some Google people about its Chinese business, and my impression is that unlike Baidu, the search engine in China, Google has no interest in building contents in China to feed its business. Without contents, how can Google survive?
Google can continue its success without Chinese market, and Chinese people will be fine without Google, too!
Google should have waited until it is in a position of immunity(50% of Chinese market share should have made its disappearance a huge PR disaster to CCP) to have a showdown wtih CCP, unfortunately I don't see anyone in today's Google management realizing this. Google China enjoyed a steday growth and expansion under Kaifu Li, who was probably the only one in Google management who understand the cultural difference between China and U.S, and whose Chinese-style perseverance is the key to Google China's success.(they went from essentially none to 25% market share under him). With him away the possiblity of turning this business success into an improvement of atmosphere of Chinese network speech is also gone.
See this (in Chinese). The article mentioned the full story include Google's decision to stop censoring and anticipating consequence, except the menting of the gmail accounts belong to human rights activitist.
When you're straining that hard to hate Google, does it hurt? Is there like a moral hernia you could give yourself doing that?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Google rightfully occupies it's position as the most creative and innovative business in the world.
This is another example of why.
Yes it sucks if you watch the news or search the web trying to find some topics while sitting behind the GFW. The government is some sort of control freak and somehow still believes that by blocking information it's not doing the exact opposite - in fact, being censored ("harmonized" in current terms) has almost become a badge of honour in some circles of Chinese internet bloggers/posters.
That being said, if you want to see a man standing in front of a tank on the street of Beijing, you don't need Google or any search engine. In fact if you already know what the result will look like, what is the point of a search? Do human rights activists and Chinese students search for tiananmen square protest every day?
As some people pointed out, if Google really pulls out of China, the real loser are the users and customers of Google in China - people who actually depend on Google's services, not the Chinese government. And besides, Baidu is so much happier. It is not true that Baidu is doing a better job and providing better service in the Chinese market - Baidu simply has better government relations/lobbying. I am not saying baidu.com is POS, it's just not not on the same level, not even close.
Neither do I suggest that Google should suck up to the Chinese propaganda machine or lobby the government - if they stick to their principles, they should pull out. Most people have shown their support of such action in their comments. Meanwhile, did anyone look at Yahoo and Microsoft? Why are cn.yahoo.com and bing.com.cn NOT having so much trouble? Government relations? What should they do if Google pulls out?
It's kinda hard to improve your market share when google.cn is redirected to baidu.
Google is being sued by a large writers organization in China after putting hundreds of their books online without there permission.
Everyone thinks they are hypocrite now so they have to do something, or at least leave gracefully.
China is our enemy. Mark my words... they will use the appetite of US cows (the 99% of our population that brainlessly consumes without thinking about where products come from) to grow ever more powerful as we become weaker, finally becoming subservient to them. Remember the commercial... Wal-Mart. Save Money. Finance Communism.
The exact same day, Google announces that Gmail will use HTTPS by default for all its users... Not a coincidence.
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/default-https-access-for-gmail.html
Just do it our western way instead of using old-school hacking. In the EU we have total monitoring of citizens mails, connections and movements of mobiles at hand for any government agency. Travels, purchases and just about anything we do is monitored, checked, logged and stored for future use. The US has almost as draconian laws and monitoring in place.
Hacking is so last year.
HTTP/1.1 400
There is no human rights in China as western democracy perceives it. End of story. Every western company and politician knows that. In spite of that fact, wish for profit has made many western companies go to China, pretending it is not so. So everybody is going boldly where other western companies have gone before. To use the excuse of human rights as a reason to shut down operation in Chine is good enough for average humans that believe that the Earth is the center of the universe and everything rotates around ur.anus.
I just deleted a long post. I noticed everything in my post was a restatement of some news item I have read about China over the last few years.
I point out something that is happening as I hear the news about China: The media seems to be building a box of news reports about China.
This media box process is causing me, like you, to rethink "Gee, is buying stuff from China really a good idea?"
The meta point I want to make to Slashdot readers is: We are all being media boxed. The last year of headline news about China is doing a lot to cause many of us to reassess our regard for China and Chinese products.
Remember how a vocal fraction of the US population shouted down the Kennedy McCain Immigration Reform Bill a few years ago? I think the adverse news items about China are building another opinion storm cloud.
I think the first thing google should uncensor is the tank man video.
I am all for it, fuck the commies.
Neither the summary nor any of the comments that I've read so far, even mention that this was a layered attack that worked in combination with a security vulnerability in Adobe Flash. It also affected about 20-30 other unnamed (by Google) companies outside of Google, including Adobe, through several other of the attack vectors, including Flash, that were used by the same group.
My guess as to two of those companies? Microsoft and Yahoo.
I would venture even further to guess that Silverlight was also exploited in a manner similar to the way they exploited Flash.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
Google to China: "Either you do something about these attacks, or we're going to start by taking our ball and going home. If you still don't do something, we're going to tell your population about all the bad shit you do and you won't be in power much longer."
In other words, the Chinese government is about to learn who's really in charge, and it ain't them.
The chinese government can assert complete control over dns. with that they can do all they need to override the protection ssl offers.
Some big corporate customers of Google were hacked. That brings into question the security of the Google cloud offering. They had to act.
How could they justify this about turn after so long? Simple, claim that they were concerned about the poor old Chinese disidents whose Google mail accounts were also hacked.
Google loves Chinese disidents just about as much as the Chinese government loves them.
It's big business that's in play here.
State China has thousands employed to blog and post China/PRC-positive comments on sites all over the net. Even Slashdot.
Please bear that in mind when reading these comments.
So you don't believe the IPCC's scientists then ?
Mini Ice age predicted, with 30 years of global cooling at least, co2 effect on climate grossly overblown, models in agreement with co2-climate link wrong.
Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN's World Climate Conference -- an annual gathering of the so-called "scientific consensus" on man-made climate change -- Prof. Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool."
The global warming theory has been based all along on the idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, then they would let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land.
But as Prof. Latif pointed out, the Atlantic, and particularly the North Atlantic, has been cooling instead. And it looks set to continue a cooling phase for 10 to 20 more years. "How much?" he wondered before the assembled delegates. "The jury is still out."
Who claims this ? Good question : Prof. Latif, of the university of Leibniz, lead author of the IPCC last 2 global warming reports.
So you're, it seems stuck, if you assault this guys credibility, of course you're also assaulting the IPCC's credibility. If you don't, obviously you have to accept the conclusions "as you're not a climate scientist". So which is it ? Or are we going to go with the rotten apple theory, which of course would mean the scientific consensus mainly rests on a few rotten apples ...
But we all know what is motivating your global warming beliefs. And it's not science.
(and this is by no means the worst news for climate change theory, there is a revolution going on in thermodynamics relating how out-of-balance "systems" (like the earth and it's climate) behave, and it's very bad news : in the long term, anything that happens, including pumping huge amounts of co2 in the air, can only result in one of 2 things : a. nothing at all b. a return to equilibrium. If this theory gets proven, it is a theoretical proof, independant of any particular climate equation being right or wrong, that nothing inside the system can break the climate cycle that we're in, unless it fully obliterates earth)
Btw : I still find the IPCC a bunch of overpaid elititists with conflicts of intrest Obama himself would be ashamed of, but I love the situation this puts global warming nazis into.
What about the Michelle monkey in US?
Dear mods,
I just noticed several of the "anonymous coward" posters are Chinese posters with useful insights, but with zero mod points. Even if you don't usually read ACs this might be a good occasion to make an exception.
This sig is just as redundant as the rest of this posting
Google rule their market ruthlessly. They will suspend people from their services penalising them and causing them damage based on their suspicions alone, based on a secret investigation, without warning, and without giving people a chance to defend themselves. Not to mention how ruthlessly Google filter their own search results. Google do not deserve to dominate any market and they are already too large, and they certainly are in no position to lecture the Chinese government on Internet ethics.
"no longer censoring results in Google.cn"
Did Google find a Force Majeure (sp) escape clause in their contract to censor Google.cn? I'd call it classy to pit a fairly random local security problem and make it the country's fault so that they can return to operating a standard search in China. Beautiful Reverse-Canary!!
"Dear Minister. For every day we do not get hacked, we'll follow your censor guidelines. When we do, they will no longer apply. "
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Well, you're kind of trolling here by being a huge dick, but whatever. I'll bite. Here is what happened:
Daily Mail is a flaming turd bag of an information source. They either purposefully or ignorantly distorted his research (as most major news orgs will, since they cannot cover science with any degree of accuracy).
If you want real information, get it from a place that focuses on actual science reporting or from the journal/research that the scientist published. In short, get your science information from the scientists. Not CNN/Fox/Daily Mail/MSNBC or whatever major news source is getting it wrong that week.
So you don't believe the IPCC's scientists then ?
Mini Ice age predicted, with 30 years of global cooling at least, co2 effect on climate grossly overblown, models in agreement with co2-climate link wrong.
Now, I'm not saying that anything in your post is either wrong or right, but I feel I have to point out that if your best reference for a science story is the Daily Mail, then this is an argument that you are not going to win.
well as of today i am no longer helping to put bricks into the great wall and will leave them kids alone ! but all i can say is TANK GOD/ALIA/BUDA/whatever.. something is being done about this horible country, it needs to be forced into the 21st cetrury cos the locals just do not care ! even when you tell them that there is a good chance they could get killed and there families won't even be told... i hope every tech company pulls out of china and all chinese goods are boycotted
its good that they decided to take this decision, even though it was after such an event. a lot of companies would still weather the storm and just keep counting their bucks. i know one such company ...
Read radical news here
Do business with China, and be screwed over.
Simple as that.
People are loosing faith in googles 'Do No Evil' claim, especially since they are becoming so big. Go to Google news and type in "Google Monopoly" to see the effect:
Newspapers:
German Justice Minister Criticizes Google 'I See a Giant Monopoly Developing That's Reminiscent of Microsoft'
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,671426,00.html
Bloggers:
"I have come to the conclusion that Google has evolved into what economists call a "natural monopoly"."
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/28/google_monopoly/
Even the FTC:
http://it-chuiko.com/internet/1887-googles-anti-monopoly-office-is-under-scrutiny.html
Google knows it is under scrutiny. Just look at google trends. http://www.google.com/trends?q=google+monopoly
Now you have the Nexus issue, and Google's name is being drug through the mud. Their name needs some work, and taking care of their biggest black eye will help if it is published widely enough.
"So you don't believe the IPCC's scientists then?"
How can I agree with all of them when they only broadly agree on what's in the reports.
"So you're, it seems stuck, if you assault this guys credibility, of course you're also assaulting the IPCC's credibility"
No it's your political mind that's stuck, it seems to be having trouble understanding the republic of science. I simply assert the reports are the best science has to offer on the subject, I would be dissapointed in any scientist who couldn't find something in their field to bet on but you're Daily Mirror link is grossly distorting Prof. Latif's research.
This is how peer-review is supposed to work, you attack a persons ideas, if someone does not submit any of their work for peer-review and refuses to address obvious flaws then they rightly lose all credibility (eg:Anthony Watts). The ideas about climate that are left standing at the end of every four years go into the IPCC reports.
"But we all know what is motivating your global warming beliefs."
Please don't project your faults onto me.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Which is a fairly scary development in itself. And they still have several hundred million people to go.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6984166.ece
Deleted
I've looked up his paper. Whatever mr "Global warming" states it does indeed say that global warming may be stopped for anywhere from a few years to a few decades by the ocean's heat transfer.
He does say that the models have the ocean heat transfer wrong for the 21st century. The ocean is not currently eating up heat like the models predict, it is adding heat to the athmosphere, and he warns that this effect is about to reverse and might turn out to be quite a big effect. That was in 2008.
And about the accuracy of the IPCC 2000-2010 predictions one can be short - and funny !
Do tell, btw, if a scientific theory or model makes a totally wrong prediction, what, exactly, should be done to said theory ?
That's OK, we can just get rid of them.
Since when is Google part of the Italian mafia ?
Don Pageleone, is that you? Are you going to give them all a kiss on the forehead?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"I've looked up his paper.
So why didn't you post the link. Could it be because it does not say anything about "a mini ice age". Matter of fact it doesn't even say the globe will stop warming, it says cold deep water will come to the surface and cool things off for a while while around two particular regions.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Return queries in encrypted format for those countries which don't treat information equal.
This is easy to implement through Javascript calls; if google can use Javascript to fade in the search screen, they should for sure have it easy to implement a proxy which encrypts/anonimizes any queries. A third party could create this service as proxy service and host it on multiple domains/servers, creating the search calls through the Google API or by direct screen scrapes.
I've used javascript before, to MD5 encrypt the user password -before- it gets sent to the server. This same scheme could be used to encrypt the first search entry and go further on the MD5/SHA1 hashes ... P2P and SSL encrypt the entire thing and it might defeat the great wall of china if used wise.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Free USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand!
I'm sure this is all a huge misunderstanding. The Chinese have some corruption, but the majority of people just want to get on with their lives and walk around a nice city and put on umbrellas when the rains come. I learned this from playing GTA Chinatown Wars. Why can't we all get along and just crash some cars and sell some drugs and have a laugh?
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Because it couldn't compete with Baidu. Of course you get to trumpet "human rights" like a douchebag even though Google is cutting and running and everyone knows it. No one gives a shit about human rights.
One acronym and two words ... SSL Script Exploit with more information available here!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
If Google pisses off the chinese bureaucrats badly enough you can bet that a lot of their employees over there will wind up being jailed for bullshit offenses and then quietly disappear.
Because mostly links from within the university pointing to articles like this don't work from other networks ...
Chinese government routinely shoot criminals for less crimes. Will they shoot themselves this time? Hacking is punishable by death in China.
It is like breaking Internet by making search in Google for the word "google".
Everything here is made in China. If we tick off China, think of what will happen to retail stores. Well, at least the door greeters will remain. People are one thing that China isn't really allowed to make.
I may post that to my Chinese blog... sure is slow lately...
PS: Not one of the thousands of scientist who have compiled these reports over the last 20yrs has ever recieved a dime from the IPCC for their work. All 3 of the the IPCC's paid staff are admin staff. The IPCC budget is $5-6M/yr sourced from ~300 politically diverse nations, the bulk of it goes to confrence facilities and plane tickets. Their financial reports are on their web site.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That was a good article, thanks! Not really anything surprising though. If you read government press releases correctly, they have been telling other people who understand 'diplomateeze' this for years.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I think in this showdown, China may have to blink first. Even if Google has only 25% of internet users in China, this still sends a direct message to all of them, all 200-300 million or so, that their government can make other governments tremble but not a company like Google.
The above is not a troll. But since being marked as one, it has surely been judged prejudicially by others as such. Congratulations on burying the truth, and my opinion. Moderation is completely broken, mostly by letting just any asshole moderate.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Netscape had it right with a big visible lock, which you could hover and click for more information.
Most users can't have it too easy to see where they are, so it's best to present any security details *right in their face* instead of hidden away...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..