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Topic: Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack (Read 1521 times) |
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Fritz
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Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack
« on: 2010-01-12 21:00:25 » |
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SO ... is this just China getting caught ? Because I can't believe that other governments aren't up to similar behaviour.
Cheers
Fritz
Source: The Register
Author: Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Date: 2010.01.13
Human rights activists hit in 20 company dragnet
Google plans to curb its controversial practice of censoring search results in China after uncovering a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" designed to steal information about human rights activists from its Gmail service and at least 20 other large companies.
The attack that hit Google in mid-December originated in China and was aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Although only two email accounts appear to have been breached, "accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China" have been routinely breached, most likely as a result of phishing or malware attacks, the company said Tuesday.
The discovery came as Google uncovered similar attacks on at least 20 other companies in the financial, technology, media, and chemical industries. In light of the revelations, Google said it is considering shuttering its Chinese operations altogether.
"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered - combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web - have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Google's chief legal officer David Drummond wrote here. "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks 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."
Drummond said Google has already used the investigation findings to introduce security improvements. The company is also in the process of sharing its findings with law enforcement authorities and the other targeted sites.
"We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech," Drummond wrote.
He didn't provide details about the two breached Gmail accounts except to say that "activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves." The names of the 20 large companies were also omitted.
Google, whose corporate credo is "Don't be evil," entered the Chinese market in 2006 with the promise to censor search results that were objectionable to the country's government. ®
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack
« Reply #1 on: 2010-01-15 03:35:34 » |
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My hat is off to Google. They may be the only entity on the planet capable of getting Chinese central authority to actually listen. We have yet to see how successful. If you don't mind I'm not gonna hold my breath for very long.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack
« Reply #2 on: 2010-01-15 03:39:09 » |
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If we could just come up with some global agreements with China re:anti-hacking enforcement; intellectual property rights; and any number of other specifically internet related issues between China and the rest of the world. It could make the world a WHOLE lot more efficient for business, growth, etc.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack
« Reply #3 on: 2010-01-15 20:03:14 » |
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That is arguably a very bad idea Mo. Particularly the whole daft idea of "Intellectual Property" - a desperate rearguard attempt on the part of obsolete organizations to establish artificial scarcity in an environment where the marginal cost of reproduction tends towards zero.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack
« Reply #4 on: 2010-01-15 22:14:03 » |
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Yeah, well, its probably not going to happen. Anyway I think Google is well in their rights and interests to say enough with hacking into our systems already. Not part of the agreement, and certainly a deal breaker. You just can't keep doing business with some people even ignoring the human rights issues until they figure out that some things are just bad business by definition. If someone kept shortchanging me in the market, I'd simply go to someone else next time. China is simply not ready for some aspects of the internet no matter how attractive the size of their market appears at first. Other areas of the world are ready, so those are the places to concentrate on first.
-Mo
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
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Fritz
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Re:Google may exit China following 'highly targeted' attack
« Reply #5 on: 2010-01-16 17:53:53 » |
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This security Meme is going no were good. The Meme is "evil doers are out to get us" and "the government is all that can save you; trust us". I suspect as China's economy gets rolling now and builds a good head of steam, it will make the West's Political and Social transgressions seem trite; but them "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition"
When I speak with family in Western Europe and they are concern that the government is now monitoring all phone and internet traffic (these are elderly non techo folks) the Fear is being made real. Like Lenin said: "A Lie told often enough becomes the Truth"
Cheers
Fritz
Plan to monitor all internet use
Source: BBC News
Author:Dominic Casciani
Date: Monday, 27 April 2009
Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.
The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.
The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.
The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database.
Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.
Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime
Jacqui Smith
Home Secretary
But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.
The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.
Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do.
"Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said.
"Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who seek to do us harm.
"It is essential that the police and other crime fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job, However to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."
'Contact not content'
Communication service providers (CSPs) will be asked to record internet contacts between people, but not the content, similar to the existing arrangements to log telephone contacts.
REASONS TO CHANGE WHAT CAN BE KEPT
More communication via computers rather than phones
Companies won't always keep all data all the time
Anonymity online masks criminal identities
More online services provided from abroad
Data held in many locations and difficult to find
Source: Home Office consultation
But, recognising that the internet has changed the way people talk, the CSPs will also be asked to record some third party data or information partly based overseas, such as visits to an online chatroom and social network sites like Facebook or Twitter.
Security services could then seek to examine this data along with information which links it to specific devices, such as a mobile phone, home computer or other device, as part of investigations into criminal suspects.
The plan expands a voluntary arrangement under which CSPs allow security services to access some data which they already hold.
The security services already deploy advanced techniques to monitor telephone conversations or intercept other communications, but this is not used in criminal trials.
Ms Smith said that while the new system could record a visit to a social network, it would not record personal and private information such as photos or messages posted to a page.
"What we are talking about is who is at one end [of a communication] and who is at the other - and how they are communicating," she said.
Existing legal safeguards under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would continue to apply. Requests to see the data would require top level authorisation within a public body such as a police force. The Home Office is running a separate consultation on limiting the number of public authorities that can access sensitive information or carry out covert surveillance.
'Orwellian'
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "I am pleased that the Government has climbed down from the Big Brother plan for a centralised database of all our emails and phone calls.
"However, any legislation that requires individual communications providers to keep data on who called whom and when will need strong safeguards on access.
"It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous, or a politician's partner is arranging to hire a porn video?
"There has to be a careful balance between investigative powers and the right to privacy."
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "The big problem is that the government has built a culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime. Too many parts of Government have too many powers to snoop on innocent people and that's really got to change.
"It is good that the home secretary appears to have listened to Conservative warnings about big brother databases. Now that she has finally admitted that the public don't want their details held by the State in one place, perhaps she will look at other areas in which the Government is trying to do precisely that."
Guy Herbert of campaign group NO2ID said: "Just a week after the home secretary announced a public consultation on some trivial trimming of local authority surveillance, we have this: a proposal for powers more intrusive than any police state in history.
"Ministers are making a distinction between content and communications data into sound-bite of the year. But it is spurious.
"Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so - all without a warrant."
The consultation runs until 20 July 2009.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldhansrd/text/91201-0001.htm
http://www.liv.ac.uk/csd/regulations/index.htm
http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/4117/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/dpfoioffice/a-ztopics/regulationoftheinvestigatorypoweract/
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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