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Google implicates the Chinese government of cyber warfare, considers pulling out of China
Google goes on to say that the primary focus of the attack was its Gmail service. But it gets murkier: it was a targeted attack on the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. And to add insult to injury: U.S.-, Europe- and China-based users who are advocates of human rights in China have been routinely accessed by third parties. In other words, someone (the Chinese security agency?) has phished for account details or installed backdoor/trojan malware on these advocates' computers.
Ultimately, in an act that is surely designed to extol their primary tenet, virtue and slogan 'don't be evil', Google is now planning to remove its censoring of the Internet for Chinese users. "[...] 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."
Remember the day, for this is finally the day when a corporation sticks it to an entire nation. The largest nation in the world. Google's sure got balls.
Update 14 January 21:10 EST: The White House has now added their support of Google's actions against China.
Comments
28
Subscribe to commentsgidleysJan 13th 2010 7:42AM
I'm all for Google making a stand, but it's corporations with more power than superpowers that REALLY give me the willies.
blogwardJan 13th 2010 1:41PM
"Implicates...of" and "disgrace for". Did a Chinese security agency write this?
Sebastian AnthonyJan 14th 2010 10:04PM
Hehe, you don't know how much I laboured over that particular turn of phrase. I know you implicate in, not implicate of -- but it was just a 'flow' thing. If I used 'in' I would've had to rephrase the rest of the title.
It works, just about!
VisalittleboyJan 14th 2010 2:40AM
I still can open www.google.com.cn or google.cn....
hehehhe
Nick MJan 14th 2010 10:00PM
1) Google hasn't proven that Chinese government was behind the attacks, so please don't jump to conclusion. Remember that there are many "patriotic" Chinese hackers who hack those email account without any kind of order.
2) In the past ten years or so, on average about 40%-70% of American citizens (according to the polls) have been unhappy with the President. The same can not (not even close) be said about Chinese citizens. Now, this doesn't mean that, in absolute terms, Chinese chairmen have been better leaders than their American counterparts, or that Chinese government is better in any way. But, as an economist myself, what counts at the end is utility (people's enjoyment and satisfaction), whether that utility is justified by your standard (a happy poor still lives a better life than a unhappy millionaire, even if you yourself may choose to become the latter).
3) Let's be honest, every government hacks people's email accounts. At the moment of this writing, it's very likely that a US surveillance ship/plane is right at China's door step (quite intrusive to me) hacking Chinese email accounts and intercepting Chinese calls.
Sebastian AnthonyJan 14th 2010 10:03PM
Thanks for the input!
I won't argue vs. 2 and 3, but re: 1 -- Google would be silly to directly state that China is the aggressor. But the (independent, I think) reports out today suggest that these attacks were orchestrated by China.
AtimatikJan 16th 2010 5:21PM
This would be a complete 180 turnaround for Google, as it's been assisting to Chinese censorship already for years. If they'll hold on to their resolution guess there's more than just ethics or fighting for justice. Say Google has withdrawing on it's mind anyway for some reason (prospects might not look good for them at the moment, Baidu has the 80-85% share of search market there etc) why not find a noble cause to justify their retreat to build image. Anyway, they'll think twice before leaving a market of such size.
JeromeJan 16th 2010 6:03PM
They're just trying to deflect attention from Google's proposed plan to charge people for searches