- Image by pamhule via Flickr
Google claims, albeit in a rather veiled way, that a hacking attack on its servers that originated in China was inspired or supported by the Chinese authorities. A pointed paragraph in the Google announcement sends the readers to reports on cyber espionage, not to your regular, run of the mill anti hacker fare.
You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this U.S. government report (PDF), Nart Villeneuve’s blog and this presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.
Consequently, Google threatens to stop complying with the terms of the deal it stroke with the Chinese authorities in 2006, through which its http://google.cn search engine was exempted from governmental selective censorship. A natural consequence might be that Google will close its palatial Beijing Office and stop operating in China altogether. This should be taken, however, with a grain of salt. Google has invested massive amounts in China, including in infrastructure and sever farms. The Google Beijing datacenter, which could cost several hundred million dollars, cannot just be closed down. A withdrawal will impact its bottom line in a significant way.
Details about Google’s announcement regarding its withdrawal from China can also be found on Rebecca McKinnon’s Rconversations.
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someone needs to take a stand to the great firewall of china. it’s good that it’s such a well-known company that will generate a lot of media coverage.
Looks like Google thinks they are big enough to take on the Chinese government.
China’s activities and Google’s responses set an interesting precedent for how nations will collaborate with Google and how Google will influence further business/infrastructure decisions in those nations.
It’s interesting that the FBI had to notify Google, along with the other companies China was hacking, before Google even knew about it. Internet security is more important than ever these days.
The Chinese government was not smart when making the decision to break a contract with a huge company. If Google were to stop operating in China, the Chinese people would be the most to suffer from the change.
From what I remember reading elsewhere, a lot of the Chinese government’s hacking was against various human rights activists as well.
I am not surprised about this incident. I know that the Chinese government has paid college students under the table to hack into US government systems. They were able to see how our national security systems work during a drill. Of course China denies this. The US government is also looking to high our college students to counter future attacks.
Although Google threatens to completely shut down the Beijing office, I don’t think that this will end up happening. Like this blog states, Google has invested millions of dollars and it will be difficult to completely shut down the Chinese datacenter as much as Google might want to.
I am interested to see if Google will actually pull out of China and stop doing business with them in the near future. Is this just a major threat, a rumor, or is Google actually going to act on this? We shall see.
It’s scary to think how easily Google could be hacked into, but it’s good that Google is fighting back and making China suffer the consequences of their actions.
Google threatening to stop operation in China will show that they can not get away with hacking into information that doesn’t belong to them.
The US most likely finds it difficult to reach a compromise with China because of the differences in government and culture.
I find it somewhat ridiculous that Google would threaten to stop activity with China because they have so much money invested with China.
It’s unfortunate that Google will potentially lose a great deal of money and followers by retreating their services from such a large population of people, but I feel this will only be a minor setback for them.
This is definitely an interesting development. Fairplay between the Chinese government and google is both conducive to good relations and expected. If what should be a two-way street of decent conduct is reduced by acts like cyber espionage, action should be taken.
China is a national recognized country in the society. If Google is trying to as said above “Google claims, albeit in a rather veiled way, that a hacking attack on its servers that originated in China was inspired or supported by the Chinese authorities.” If the corporation is hacking on its servers, this situation calls for a discussion on privacy within cyberspace and in revealing information online. The previous issues were mentioned in the text above as “cyber-security,” basically this issue is definitely at the forefront of a new decade, but also in discussions across the country. Should we as citizens allow cyberspacing hackers steal our information or should we allow this to go on.
While it is unlikely Google will stop business with China altogether, it is good the issue is being addressed. At the very least the Chinese government should be threatened about the seriousness of their hacking actions and poor business decisions.
Seems like they would be better off to just comply and not close down and lose money from the bottom line.