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Google.cn Attack Part of a Broad Spying Effort
CWmike writes "Google's decision Tuesday to risk walking away from China (Um, the world's largest Internet market) may have come as a shock, but security experts see it as the most public admission of a top IT problem for US companies: ongoing corporate espionage originating from China. It's a problem that the US lawmakers have complained about loudly. In the corporate world, online attacks that appear to come from China have been an ongoing problem for years, but big companies haven't said much about this, eager to remain in the good graces of the world's powerhouse economy. Google, by implying that Beijing had sponsored the attack, has placed itself in the center of an international controversy, exposing what appears to be a state-sponsored corporate espionage campaign that compromised more than 30 technology, financial and media companies, most of them global Fortune 500 enterprises. The US government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement asking the Chinese government to explain itself, saying that Google's allegations 'raise very serious concerns and questions.' She continued: 'The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy.'"
Everybody seems to walk on egg shells as to not cause friction with China because of the "possible" loss of customers they get access to. I applaud Google for this. Just because China has 1.3 billion people does not make them all good customers. I know a lot of software developers who would rather stay out of China because after the first license is sold, it's pirated and re-distributed by their competitors. So my point, why compromise your ethics for a hostile business environment that might lead to further problems and minimal increase in the balance sheets. Way to go Google!
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
That's because they apparently were able to access a system used to help Google comply with search warrants by providing data on Google users, said a source familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press.
See why leaving back doors open for law enforcement and other Government organizations actually decreases our security?
See why "if you do nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about" is complete utter non-sense?
By making the government's job easier, they've opened up the door to malicious attacks by foreign governments.
The FBI (the whole Executive branch for that matter) and Congress should be ashamed of themselves for their stupidity in ordering such back doors.
The only fear I have for my security is the idiocy of the US Government in "protecting" me.
Morons.
Yeah, I don't think anyone really realizes the power of Google now. They have a lot of power for content creators, advertisers, technology companies, and millions of people. It is not a start-up: It is the most powerful company on the face of the planet, but no one realizes this yet.
A lot of people go "They won't do it, China is 1/5th (or 1/6th) of the worlds population!"
Google can have the other 4/5ths (or 5/6ths). No Internet company started in China will grow outside of China the way they are set up.
Let them stew in their "secure" system they put in place. Put your efforts elsewhere. When you gain the rest of the world - then China will obey Google, not the other way around.
This is going to go down as the biggest piece of corporate "do-gooding" since Henry Ford did the $5 day. I can't even begin to calculate how much Google went up in my mind for doing this. They may have lost a bunch of potential customers, but for what its worth, they've just got me for life.
Whatever their motives, Google did the right thing, and in a big way. I didn't see Microsoft stepping up to the plate like that, Apple didn't step up to the plate like that, and I'll remember that when I choose platforms.
This is my sig.
Further reasons the administration might not like what China is doing right now are economic. China ties their currency exchange rate to the U.S. dollar in a way that keeps theirs low relative to ours. This essentially creates a permanent trade imbalance between the exporter (CHina) and the importers (U.S. mostly, also Europe). I hear people say all the time that China owns a huge portion of the U.S. debt and it would be a big disaster economically if they sold that debt. This is incorrect, if the Chinese sold their U.S. debt they'd be doing us a favor because it would depress the value of the dollar and make our manufacturing more competitive. In the past when unemployment has been rock-bottom in the U.S., this wouldn't help us much. Right now it would help our economy a lot to create manufacturing jobs because our unemployment is 10%. Paul Krugman quantified this by saying that China's exchange rate policy amounts to 1.4 million lost jobs in the U.S. The people at the federal reserve and the treasury know this. Ben Bernake himself has been quoted as saying chaiman-speak equivalent for the Chinese are playing with fire.
The conclusion here is that I suspect that if Clinton is mentioning this, the administration is planning on using this as leverage to get economic or other concessions out of the Chinese.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Indeed it's true. I see many people talk of fearing China, but the reality is it simply doesn't have the military equipment to fight far from it's shores, it doesn't have the stability to guarantee that if it does send it's soldiers outside it's borders that it wont lose territory to dissidents inside it's borders. Contrary to popular belief it doesn't have that much support from Russia, partly because it's still locked in border disputes with them, the same goes for it's other neighbours in almost every direction who would love the opportunity of China spreading itself to far to claim territory they believe is their own.
Economically it could certainly be a problem, but in terms of us losing it's manufacturing facility the likes of India which is of a similar population would gladly pick up the slack, and in the current weakened economic situation in fact, most countries would be willing to take on a big manufacturing boost.
That's not to say they couldn't be a problem at all of course, if they backed up North Korea by having North Korea threaten further to launch nukes whilst providing them military support to try and wave of the US and such from attacking it in response to such threats it'd be a big deal. Similarly any war with them would still be a hell of a headache, but the point to take away is this, no matter what China does, even if in the worst case they decide to pursue a military route, whilst they'd cause a lot of harm and damage, they'd have absolutely no chance of winning. Even their nuclear stockpile is relatively small, particularly when you take into account modern American ICBM defences.
In a way though it's a real shame, because China has so many smart people, it has such potential to be a thriving peaceful modern nation. It's perhaps ironic that the lust for power and control at the top of China is exactly what stops China from becoming a more powerful player on the international stage. It has a big population, but it can't unilaterally take on the world despite seeming to believe otherwise.
"Hey COO, we need to locate a remote technology office. This will support the economy of Brazil, China, India, Poland." "Let's choose... ANYWHERE BUT CHINA, because they will steal our stuff."
Public perceptions matter. And statements like this drive headlines, which drive perceptions. There's some line-in-the-sand drawing happening: we'll put up a lot of shit, but not so much with the stealing our data. So knock it off, or things will get unpleasant.
We've tried the no-talk, all-action approach: Iraq reconstruction. How well did that work?
Read their announcement. They have decided that they are no longer willing to censor search results. They are interested in speaking with the Chinese government on the possibilities of continuing to operate in China without censorship (use your own expertise as to the likelihood of that happening). Google has said that if they can't agree with the government, that they will close down google.cn.
They've already made their decision, they gave the ball back to the Chinese to decide whether they want Google to be allowed to operate without censorship. Frankly, an uncensored Google in China may be better than Google leaving China.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
It is also the first step in the diplomatic process that can lead to condemnations from the UN, sanctions, or even war.
Would the UN condemn one of the five countries in its own Security Council?
"The Chinese are all about assimilation of technology. "
Yes. And this is Slashdot, a website which is generally in favour of people assimilating, reverse engineering, decrypting, hacking, cracking, opening, jailbreaking, repurposing, learning, making, rebuilding, customising and sharing technology. We believe in the right to read, the right to copy, Stallman's Four Freedoms, that technology should be owned, not licenced, that DRM is evil because it blocks a user's ability to control their own technological destiny, that software patents stifle innovation, that copyright and region coding keeps media prices artificially high, that censorship is an intrinsic evil, that business models must perpetually innovate, that nobody owes buggy whip makers a living, etc.
We believe that We The People Have The Right to learn stuff, copy stuff, and share stuff, and that technology is only safe when the user is in the driving seat.
Oh... but suddenly all that is bad if CHINA does it? Eek! Scary Asian people stealing our freedom (to control them).
I say, let China assimilate all they want. The bigger problem here is US corporations who think they have the moral right and practical ability to *stop* other countries sharing technological information - and then foolishly built business models on that foundation of sand.
Sell stuff to China if you choose to. Don't sell stuff to China if you choose to. Just don't expect them to 'respect' your crazy ideas that information is property, which it isn't. I mean, this is Slashdot - we know that, right? We read Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow, we put Creative Commons on our photos and GPL on our code, we know that information *should* be copied because that's its strength... right?
Don't try to 'sell' your secrets to China with one hand while trying to grab them back with the other, because that's like posting your drunk party photos on Facebook then saying 'but I didn't mean for the world to see me naked!'
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC