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China's Politburo Behind Google Cyber-Attack?

theodp writes "While Wikileaks itself is under a DoS attack, details about the US State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks are starting to come out via the mainstream media. Among the most newsworthy, reports Techcrunch's Erick Schonfeld, is one set which deals with the massive computer attack on Google and other companies which was first revealed last January. According to the NY Times, some of the new leaked cables point directly at China's Politburo for instigating the original attacks, which should shed some more light on why the White House and State Department backed Google so vociferously at the time. Developing, as Drudge likes to say."

8 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Re:headline? by peragrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So the USA suppresses information that china's government engaged in illegal hacking, and the USA is behind the DDOS attack on wikileaks. Why can't China be behind it after a US agent tells a chinese agent what is happening.

    I know because China is good and the USA is bad.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  2. Surprised? by JakFrost · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that hardly anyone is surprised that China's Politburo (a group of 24 people who oversee the Communist Party of China) was behind the hacking of the Chinese Google office computers. You can see the seriousness of the issue after reading Google's response to the hacking and their threat to pull out of China all together and also after reading the Department of the State's involvement in this issue. The Department of the State, and someone as high up as Hillary Clinton, getting involved in this issue shows how important this single hacking event was, and not just because Google is everyone's the current favorite company.

    US asks China to explain Google hacking claims

    Bobbie Johnson in San Francisco
    guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 January 2010 08.19 GMT

    Hillary Clinton calls on Beijing to answer 'serious concerns' over internet security
    Google pulls out of China: what the bloggers are saying

    The US government is investigating allegations of a Chinese hacking attack on Google amid what Washington called "serious concerns" over internet security.

    The strike, which the company said was aimed at uncovering information linked to political dissidents in the country, led Google to announce last night that it would no longer censor its search engine in China.

    The move could result in Google being forced to pull out of China four years after it controversially announced its intention to launch a censored version of google.cn, the local version of its search engine.

    Faced with a conflict between one of America's most powerful companies and the Chinese government, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, called on Beijing to discuss the situation.

  3. Re:headline? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm very surprised Julian Assange is still alive.

    He is smart enough not to leak Russian secrets.

  4. wikileaks by omar.sahal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For such an embarrassment these leaks do go some way to promoting the US world view, or is that just editing from the media outlets. Examples such as many middle eastern counties (Saudi, Jordan and Egypt etc) urging US to bomb Iran, as well as the links below
    Iraq document leaks show US forces found WMD after invasion - http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/
    Wikileaked documents normalise Iraq civilian death toll at 'massive' 66,000

    1. Re:wikileaks by Lakitu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are you really surprised that diplomatic cables between US diplomats express a "US world view"?

  5. Re:Just because the American government says it by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it's said in a private communication between diplomats, the chances are they believe it to be true themselves. Not to say that makes it unquestionably true, of course, but it does make it an awful lot more credible than the PR they dish out to the public. I give these documents a lot more credit than I would to public statements made by the US government, and I see no hypocrisy in that; I'd be interested to hear if you think otherwise.

  6. Re:Attention wh0re? by grcumb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't take issue with him being in the lime light... but he purposefully stretches it out.

    I think this tactic is known as 'running cover'. Assange knows that someone has to be the focal point for the ogranisation, to make contact with media reps and various others in order to ensure the responsible dissemination of the data. Doing so allows a great many others to work quietly, undisturbed in the background. Say what you like about his motivation, he's chosen that role. I'd argue that, as someone who believes more in daylight than shadows, he's using the spotlight to keep himself out of harm's way.

    he announces the release ahead of time so he can create a sensation

    Sure. This actually is one of the largest leaks of information in modern history. It's sensational in its very essence. Given that wikileaks' reason for being is to disseminate leaked information as effectively as possible, advance press is perfectly understandable.

    If they were really concerned about access to the information and not publicity the would "soft release" to trusted groups on BitTorrent a few days/weeks before they announced it.

    Great idea. How about sharing it quietly with a number of the most reputable media organisations in the Western world? How about giving them months of prep time, so they could conduct analysis. How about -shocking, I know- even telling the affected agencies what was about to be released and offering them the opportunity to assist in the redaction process? That's exactly what they did.

    Now, there's no way a government could be seen to be negotiating with them, so this might be seen as grandstanding, but who knows what contacts might have been made behind the scenes? (Well, wikileaks, of course, but... you get what I'm saying.)

    That way the data is well seeded and a DDoS would be very difficult. That's why I'm accusing them of attention wh0ring... there are very easy ways of preventing this DDoS and they are smart enough to know that.

    Indeed they are. And indeed they have.

    You can characterise what they do as attention-whoring if you like. The fact is that their job is to get as much attention as possible on the data they're releasing. If you suffer from this process, you won't be glad about it. I can accept that.

    I have friends who were directly affected by information divulged to wikileaks some years ago. While I'm still angry at those who so cynically used wikileaks to release context-free data that wrongly created some very nasty implications, I don't blame wikileaks for releasing the information. That's just what they do.

    In fact, I'd rather see wikileaks do it than others. While they're occasionally guilty of editorialising about their data, at least they release all of it, providing others with the opportunity to draw their own conclusions. Most media organisations do not do this. They run with what they think will lead, and leave the rest by the roadside.

    I don't always like the results of what wikileaks does, but at least they are exactly what the claim to be.

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  7. Re:assassination by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, killing him would make him the message, and that would be worth something.