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Google Hacked, May Pull Out of China

Posted by kdawson on from the now-you've-done-it dept.

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.'"

4 of 687 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So what will happen in practice? by Kalriath · · Score: 5, Informative

    What? The URL string is not available over an SSL connection. Here's a transcript, including headers, of an HTTPS request.

    AW#$GAWE$gae3gtraweRGEGaergaweRGTawerGTAWERGTW#trgse3ryg35g

    You get the idea. No URI string available. All they could detect is the destination server.

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  2. Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not the first foreign company that had massive problems with China, even in the last year. The government arrested employees of the Australian Rio Tinto steel company a few months ago, after negotiations broke down with a government backed company (the government didn't want to pay as much as Rio Tinto wanted to charge). The government arrested the employees for industrial espionage and bribing.

    The scary thing is, it is essentially impossible for a foreign company to do business in China without bribes, even a small company. The Rio Tinto case wasn't publicized much in the mainstream media (at least in the US), but it was fairly well covered in the Wall Street Journal, and I guarantee executives of a lot of companies paid attention. Being arrested in China because the government doesn't like you is a risk that can outweigh a huge profit margin.

    I would honestly suggest that if you are considering outsourcing to China, that you do it instead to India or Eastern Europe, because the unknowns are much smaller.

    --
    Qxe4
  3. Re:Guess what Baidu has already censored? by Game_Ender · · Score: 5, Informative

    Confirmed. This kind of stuff is pretty crazy.

  4. Re:Stereotype by interskh · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am a Chinese student.

    Thanks to Internet, we Chinese ppl these days could get these information easier than before. We know about these things like Tienanmen event, etc. Well we have some places to share these information(p2p rocks, doesnt it?) As far as i know, most student in my college have knowledges of what happened those years and sometime we chat about that.

    Admittedly, there is GFW trying to block some websites. But in the age of Internet, there is really nothing that could block us from the facts.