Slashdot Mirror
Google Warning Gmail Users On Spying From China
Trailrunner7 writes "Google is using automated warnings to alert users of its Gmail messaging service about widespread attempts to access personal mail accounts from Internet addresses in China. The warnings may indicate wholesale spying by the Chinese government a year after the Google Aurora attacks, or simply random attacks. Victims include one leading privacy activist. Warnings appeared when users logged onto Gmail, encountering a red banner reading, 'Your account was recently accessed from China,' and providing a list of IP addresses used to access the account. Users were then encouraged to change their password immediately. Based on Twitter posts, there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the accounts that were accessed, though one target is a prominent privacy rights activist in the UK who has spoken out against the Chinese government's censorship of its citizens. A Google spokesman declined to comment on the latest warnings specifically. The company has been issuing similar warnings since March, when it introduced features to identify suspicious account activity."
I'm not American or even European btw.
Given the recent situation with Japan, I don't know how else to see China.
Vietnam have been complaining about China's bully tactics for a while now, it's just that no one paid attention.
China has been gaining a lot of power, the US might not even be able to restraint them any more.
Frankly it scares me.
I hate to say this but the moron Bush might actually be right, China has to be contained.
If I could turn back time and somehow stop China from joining the WTO I would.
As for the US, the things you guys do in the middle east is one hell of a clusterfuck.
But I don't know.
I think would rather live under the thumb of the US government than the PRC.
From my point of view, maybe it's because I'm from a country friendly towards the US, US in general have been relatively benevolent "rulers" in comparison to what China could be capable of.
Yeah, shooting them with rifles is so much more civil.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
China does atrocities from within their borders and doesn't maintain an illusion of freedom.
It depends on what kind of atrocities and freedom. If you are talking about violent crimes, living in China is generally much safer than in US. And Chinese law is sometimes intentionally ambiguous and if you are clever enough you'll have more freedom than you want.
The actual significant difference between China and the US, is Chinese officials are not elected. So the whole political games change.
Let's see - I have never been in China and don't plan to go in the near future - maybe if Google added a feature that allows me to CONTROL what countries I can access it from, it could alleviate a lot of this problem.
I'd rather have out-of-band notifications of access - kinda like the way some banks do for their credit card accounts.
For example - I'd like to get a text message everytime someone logs into my account and everytime some major change is made - like setting up an auto-forward or changing the password.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
not only all countries but my own, I would like to be able to whitelist to
- my work IP
- my home internet provider
and that's it, if I travel I can always stop restrictions temporarily, but there should be no reason why any location but the two above should be able to access my email account on a regular basis.
If Google wanted to make things simpler for users, you could also have the option to restrict by geolocation, given how good it is nowadays it should be trivial to say 'allow connections only from this city'
-- the cake is a lie
No, it's a stupid point. Nobody in America is going to be driving over college students with tanks. You're taking the extreme, anti-American position because you think it makes you more insightful and intellectual while ignoring the fact that your ability to even post criticism of your country in the first place is proof that America is completely different from China.
Because you claimed America is putting people into forced labor prisons and selling their organs, and you didn't cite a single example for any of your claims. You also completely gloss over the actions and motivations during the Cold War. It's just the same, generic anti-American drivel you can find on someone's LiveJournal above anarchist gifs and Hugo Chavez quotes.