In Google's Rebuke of China, Focus Falls on Cybersecurity
Posted in: Censorship at 15/01/2010 00:00
Even before Google threatened to pull out of China in response to an attack on its computer systems, the company was notifying activists whose e-mail accounts might have been compromised by hackers.
In a world where vast amounts of personal information stored online can quickly reveal a network of friends and associates, Google's move to protect individuals from government surveillance required quick action. In early January, Tenzin Seldon, a 20-year-old Stanford student and Tibetan activist, was told by university officials to contact Google because her Gmail account had been hacked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/technology/14google.html
Google Takes a Stand by Nicholas D. Kristof
It has been dispiriting to see America's banks apparently stand for nothing more lofty than plunder. It has been demoralizing to see President Obama hiding from the Dalai Lama rather than offend China's rulers.
So all that makes Google's decision to stand up to Chinese cyberoppression positively breathtaking. By announcing that it no longer plans to censor search results in China, even if that means it must withdraw from the country, Google is showing spine -- a kind that few other companies or governments have shown toward Beijing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/opinion/14kristof.html
China Google cyberattack part of spying campaign: experts [Relax News]
The cyberattacks that prompted Google into defying Chinese censors appear to have been part of an ongoing campaign to steal precious source codes and track human rights activists, experts said on Wednesday.
"It's a complete pattern of attacks," said Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and DefCon computer security conferences and a member of the US Homeland Security Advisory Council.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/china-google-cyberattack-part-of-spying-campaign-experts-1867429.html
Google the latest victim of Chinese 'state-sponsored' cyberwar
Just over two years ago the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, wrote to about 300 British firms warning them to be wary of Chinese hackers trying to monitor their systems or break into them remotely via the internet: Rolls-Royce, the jet engine maker, and Royal Dutch Shell had both fallen victim to computer intrusions. It was only part of an ongoing strategy of "information warfare" that China's government - through its People's Liberation Army (PLA) - is carrying out across the world.
The latest targets in a scheme appear to be companies in Silicon Valley, where companies including Google and Adobe, which makes hugely popular Flash software (used for the vast majority of video online, such as the BBC's iPlayer and YouTube), have discovered intrusions into the computers where they store their "source code" - the millions of lines of programming, readable by humans, that comprise their software. Those are, effectively, their crown jewels: if they fall into rivals' hands, the programs can be copied, altered, or produced for free under another name.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/14/google-hacking-china-cyberwar
Google China cyberattack part of vast espionage campaign, experts say
Computer attacks on Google that the search giant said originated in China were part of a concerted political and corporate espionage effort that exploited security flaws in e-mail attachments to sneak into the networks of major financial, defense and technology companies and research institutions in the United States, security experts said.
At least 34 companies -- including Yahoo, Symantec, Adobe, Northrop Grumman and Dow Chemical -- were attacked, according to congressional and industry sources. Google, which disclosed on Tuesday that hackers had penetrated the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights advocates in the United States, Europe and China, threatened to shutter its operations in the country as a result.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300359.html