Google to China -- FU

[chickenhead]

like all companies doing business in China, Google had to compromise themselves to do business there, and allowed their search results to be censored. As market leaders and with their "Do no Evil" motto, they deservedly received a lot of criticism for this. Their response was they felt some Google was better for the people than no Google, which is both true, and self serving.

Well today they announced that the Chinese gov't has been engaged in wide ranging attempts to hack into and surveil Google user accounts of Chinese nat'ls that happen to be critical of the Chinese gov't.

Google response -- FU China. Our results will no longer be censored. This most likely means Google will be forced to leave the Chinese market entirely, or, that China will end internet censoring. It's a high stakes game of chicken that Google will almost certainly lose.

It will be a long long, long time before you see another corporation decide to walk away from the Chinese market on their own volition. The long term damage this likely does to Google is large. Google has 17% market share there, 17% market share in the 2nd largest, fastest growing internet market in the world, and they walk away.

Bravo Google. Bravo.

[bigmack]

Google might as well call Yoo-Haul and start packing up.

Google threatened late Tuesday to pull out of its operations in China after it said it had uncovered a massive cyber attack on its computers that originated there.

As a result, the company said, it would no longer agree to censor its search engine in China and may exit the country altogether.

Google said that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human right activists, but that the attack also targeted 20 other large companies in the finance, technology, media and chemical sectors.

[chickenhead]

what's interesting is Microsoft just recently said China was their #1 strategic focus for Bing going forward.

I imagine they are verily freaked out at the moment, trying to figure out whether they should be jumping for joy that they get a once in a lifetime free shot to take share in such a desirous place, or panicked because they are going to look just horrible if they do not follow Googles lead.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

[hazzardm]

Google might as well call Yoo-Haul and start packing up.

Google threatened late Tuesday to pull out of its operations in China after it said it had uncovered a massive cyber attack on its computers that originated there.

As a result, the company said, it would no longer agree to censor its search engine in China and may exit the country altogether.

Google said that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human right activists, but that the attack also targeted 20 other large companies in the finance, technology, media and chemical sectors.

Saw a Google announcement today that gmail is now going secure ip https:// on all accounts.

[xtb]

Kudos to Google. It's a shame other companies won't have the integrity to follow suit.

[NJ Stinks]

Great news! :ThmbUp:

Honestly, I look at everything now. If it's made in China I keep looking.

[chickenhead]

Saw a Google announcement today that gmail is now going secure ip https:// on all accounts.

I have a feeling what they uncovered was staggering in scope, this is certainly an indication of that, they hate slowing things down. I don't believe Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc even offer https as an option, Google turning it on by default should be a signal to everyone.

For as large a worldwide player as Google to so publicly rebuke the Chinese gov't goes so against the script of how corporations behave today. It is absolutely refreshing.

[bigmack]

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u70/macktime/1_13_10_20_08_25.png

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/technology_at_work/archives/2010/01/how_did_the_goo.html

[chickenhead]

it is interesting reading between the lines about how Google went about "investigating" this. They tracked back to the hackers (cough chinese gvt cough) server that was communicating with the malware infected machines -- and they, Google, hacked into and gained control of it. That is how Google discovered all these other companies that had been hacked.

[ArlJim78]

here is a related story (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=29533)about a law firm who says that they suffered a Chinese cyber attack after having filed a lawsuit against China.

from ZDNET;
__________________________________________________ ________

The Los Angeles law firm representing a software company that filed a software piracy suit against the People’s Republic of China last week said today that it has been the victim of a cyber-attack that originated in China this week. (Statement (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gipson-Hoffman-Pancione-Comes-bw-1192518024.html?x=0))

On Monday evening, the lawyers at the firm of Gipson, Hoffman and Pancione in Los Angeles began receiving trojan e-mails made to appear as if they were sent from within the firm. It remains unclear yet whether any of attacks were successful at allowing attackers access to any data. The attacks, which have been reported to the FBI and are under investigation, come a day after Google announced (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=29453&tag=col1;post-29453) that it had been attacked from within China and threatened to shutter its Google.cn site.

[hazzardm]

Interesting comments on this story regarding Adobe attacks. If Adobe' servers are as weak as their products :lol: , they are very susceptable.

I think if more companies had the financial resources of Google, the volume of documented attacks would be staggering.

http://www.dailytech.com/Adobe+Targeted+by+Cyber+Attack+from+China/article17387.htm

[DJofSD]

like all companies doing business in China, Google had to compromise themselves to do business there, and allowed their search results to be censored. As market leaders and with their "Do no Evil" motto, they deservedly received a lot of criticism for this. Their response was they felt some Google was better for the people than no Google, which is both true, and self serving.

Well today they announced that the Chinese gov't has been engaged in wide ranging attempts to hack into and surveil Google user accounts of Chinese nat'ls that happen to be critical of the Chinese gov't.

Google response -- FU China. Our results will no longer be censored. This most likely means Google will be forced to leave the Chinese market entirely, or, that China will end internet censoring. It's a high stakes game of chicken that Google will almost certainly lose.

It will be a long long, long time before you see another corporation decide to walk away from the Chinese market on their own volition. The long term damage this likely does to Google is large. Google has 17% market share there, 17% market share in the 2nd largest, fastest growing internet market in the world, and they walk away.

Bravo Google. Bravo.
As I recall what I heard stated by the Google legal representative on Kudlow's program, Google has not said specifically it was the Chinese state who was responsible. He stopped short of that by saying "well organized" or words to that effect.

Ya, we all know, it very likely is state sponsored but Google is being careful by using the equivallent of "alleged".

China, can't live with it or without it.

[bigmack]

I am shocked it was a breach through MS IE:

The cyberattack that has prompted Google Inc. to threaten to pull out of China exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser, a security research firm said Thursday.

The attackers took aim at Google and numerous other corporations by targeting one or a few key individuals in each company, tricking them into clicking on a link or a file that appeared to have been sent from a trusted source, said McAfee Inc. Chief Technology Officer George Kurtz in a blog post.

This enabled malicious software to be downloaded and installed on the targets' corporate computers, opening back doors that allowed the attackers to perform reconnaissance and gain complete control over the compromised systems, said Kurtz.

The attackers, believed to be in China, had identified high value targets with access to intellectual property and were able to siphon off valuable data from the companies, he said.

"Like an army of mules withdrawing funds from an ATM, this malware enabled the attackers to quietly suck the crown jewels out of many companies while people were off enjoying their December holidays," he wrote.

[chickenhead]

As I recall what I heard stated by the Google legal representative on Kudlow's program, Google has not said specifically it was the Chinese state who was responsible. He stopped short of that by saying "well organized" or words to that effect.

Yes, in public at least.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/01/researchers-identify-command-servers-behind-google-attack.ars

VeriSign's iDefense security lab has published a report with technical details about the recent cyberattack that hit Google and over 30 other companies. The iDefense researchers traced the attack back to its origin and also identified the command-and-control servers that were used to manage the malware.

Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort. The report also says that the malicious code was deployed in PDF files that were crafted to exploit a vulnerability in Adobe's software.

the guy Mack quoted above say they targeted a "cocktail" of zero-day vulnerabilities, at least one of which, the Microsoft one, wasn't known about before.