Google and China: Big Face Off coming ...

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Very. Serious.Very. High. Stakes. Major. Implications. Interesting.
I hope this is bona fide and not just posturing.
Google as a force for good: the mind boggles.
http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/2010...ant-to-stop-censoring-chinese-search-results/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/google-censorship-china/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10433538-265.html
http://www.scottbrownconsulting.com/2010/01/cyberwarfare-rages-guess-where/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/13/google_china/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...siness News)&utm_content=Google International

LOL, on a lesser note maybe gooogle can make the Oz gov back down on the stupid ISP filter list !!
The Conroy should be no problem compared to China.

 

As I posted elsewhere, if they truly do stick to their guns, my faith in Google will begin building back up. If they chicken out, well, it won't be the biggest shock ever. It completely depends, imho, on if they are scared of Wall Street. If they go through with this, loss of money be damned, a big thumbs up goes to them. Though we have to remember what they do for the residents of China they may not do for the rest of us, especially the U.S., in regards to censorship and, of course, privacy.

I wouldn't expect them to take to task and defeat the Oz situation however, lol. From everything I have heard from others, they are dead set in their ways.

 

According to reports, China blocked the Google blog post from their legal dept.
!!
Way to deal with the world there.

 

Information is freedom, of course they blocked it. Free thinking is deadly to absolute power.

 

I think it's mostly PR by Google.
Their market share in China isn't that big anyway.

 

http://arstechnica.com/security/new...tify-command-servers-behind-google-attack.ars

The researchers have determined that there are significant similarities between the recent attack and a seemingly related one that was carried out in July against a large number of US companies. Both attacks were apparently managed through the same command-and-control servers.

"The servers used in both attacks employ the HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, and both are currently pointing to IP addresses owned by Linode, a US-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting. The IP addresses in question are within the same subnet, and they are six IP addresses apart from each other," the report says. "Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July."

If the report's findings are correct, it suggests that the government of China has been engaged for months in a massive campaign of industrial espionage against US companies.

 

Dog-eat-dog cyber wars going on behind the political smiles.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,671926,00.html

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60E5PQ20100116

 

Not to be captain obvious here, but the Chinese are laughing at any U.S. rhetoric or threatening language. What can the U.S. do? The Chinese know that the U.S. needs their cheap labor and industrial infrastructure. Without it, the U.S. economy is negatively impacted, which would be especially bad during this recession. Basically, the U.S. is a slave to China. Of course it works both ways: the Chinese make a lot of money from U.S. consumption, but we need them more than they need us.

The bottom line is nothing will happen here but a little tough language and hand wringing. Then it will be business as usual. Google wont pull out because they can't afford to lose 1/5th of the world's customers.

 

Not to mention China owns the majority of our debt. Google may go through with closing their Chinese offices, they can afford it, and the loss of revenue is worth the positive PR they'll get from government spinsters and those that can't/won't read well enough between the lines to understand what is really going on (that being yes, Google is taking a stand, but their own spy network got spied on...see the hypocrisy there?).

The U.S on the other hand, is an entirely different story. The U.S CAN'T afford to ruffle China's feathers. All we can afford to do is say "Tsk Tsk, China, naughty country", to which of course the Chinese and every other developed nation on earth would say "Tell ya what, sport, you stop spying on us, we'll stop spying on you *wink*"......Right, THAT is going to go somewhere fast.

Cyber-spying/warfare is a part of life now. Progress means progressing both the positive and the negative. We're stuck with these kinds of incidents now, and, because of the global economy, which is a GOOD thing, the negative thing is nobody can truly do a damn thing about these incidents except spy right back. Financial threats are out the window.

 

It's not limited to google. Dell has allowed China to stop them from producing PC's with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) which allows users to encrpt the drive. Cuts down on spying big time China has banned that device. This is really bad news.

Everytime I use google they try to scan my PC.

 

You don't need TPM to encrypt a drive.

I am actually opposed to TPM for a number of reasons myself. For one, it is subject to abuse from M$ and other companies.

 

Greetings from Chimerica!

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6094.html

 

What do you mean by that ?

 

Maybe ad-servers trying to connect? If using Chrome I'd suspect it is for sure trying to connect back to Google as it goes along and/or any of their god knows how many ad-servers they own. Other than that, no idea what else would be "scanning".

 

That's very interesting.

Having researched TPM in the W7 world which I'm in, TPM offers much stronger protection via encryption via the H/W method than the old SW methods.

This holds true for boot manipulation as well.

The M$ is for me meaningless as a "trust" issue as my o/s is from them perhaps yours is as well. If we don't trust the provider of the o/s what are we thinking? Yes, M$ pokes it's nose in more than they should but I block their ip's via the FW as required like many of the other S/W suppliers.

Now China forcing their privacy policy via Dell and I fear other Western vendors is a much much larger issue.

 

Foreign Reporters' Google E-Mail Hacked in China

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010...est Headlines)&utm_content=Google Feedfetcher

 

Re: Foreign Reporters' Google E-Mail Hacked in China

Thanks for the link Johnny! Interesting stuff.

Shows the danger of moving all our manufacturing off shore even security configuration for off shore PC's!

 

Off-topic but China is common denominator.
China yanks 'Avatar' for homegrown film

 

The Register has all of the recent happenings wrapped in one link.
Wired Threat Level has some comprehensive reading, as well.

 

Of course they'll deny it, and the White House will deny U.S intelligence is doing the same thing. Welcome to 21st century intelligence gathering/warfare That's the reason that I'm going to play devils advocate here and not blame either side. Who do I blame? I blame 1. Microsoft for the vulnerability. 2. Google for (if it truly is the case) the "backdoor" it put in to allow data gathering for "legitimate" law enforcement use.

I'm not against law enforcement, but there are alternative and better ways to go about it than opening up a hole in the network of one of the largest and widely used services perhaps on the planet.

 

Imitation Google, YouTube sites emerge in China