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Google to end China censorship after e-mail breach

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100113/...c_google_china

:thumbsup:

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SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human-rights activists into exposing their e-mail accounts to outsiders.

The change of heart announced Tuesday heralds a major shift for the Internet's search leader, which has repeatedly said it will obey Chinese laws requiring some politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results available in other countries. The acquiescence had outraged free-speech advocates and even some shareholders, who argued Google's cooperation with China violated the company's "don't be evil" motto.

The criticism had started to sway Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who openly expressed his misgivings about the company's presence in China.

But the tipping point didn't come until Google recently uncovered hacking attacks launched from within China. The apparent goals: breaking into the computers of at least 20 major U.S. companies and gathering personal information about dozens of human rights activists trying to shine a light on China's alleged abuses.

Google spokesman Matt Furman declined to say whether the company suspects the Chinese government may have had a hand in the attacks.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Google allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions" and the U.S. is seeking an explanation from the Chinese government.

Google officials also plan to talk to the Chinese government to determine if there is a way the company can still provide unfiltered search results in the country. If an agreement can't be worked out, Google is prepared to leave China four years after creating a search engine bearing China's Web suffix, ".cn" to put itself in a better position to profit from the world's most populous country.

"The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences," David Drummond, Google's top lawyer, wrote in a Tuesday blog posting.

A spokesman for the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had no immediate comment.

Abandoning China wouldn't put a big dent in Google's earnings, although it could crimp the company's growth as the country's Internet usage continues to rise. China's Internet audience already has soared from 10 million to nearly 340 million in the past decade.

Google, based in Mountain View, said its Chinese operations account for an "immaterial" amount of its roughly $22 billion in annual revenue. J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan had been expecting Google's China revenue to total about $600 million this year.

Although Google's search engine is the most popular worldwide, it's a distant second in China, where the homegrown Baidu.com processes more than 60 percent of all requests.

Free-speech and human rights groups are hoping Google's about-face will spur more companies to take a similar stand.

"Google has taken a bold and difficult step for Internet freedom in support of fundamental human rights," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil-liberties group in Washington. "No company should be forced to operate under government threat to its core values or to the rights and safety of its users."

It's "an incredibly significant move," said Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet rights group in San Francisco. "This changes the game because the question won't be 'How can we work in China?' but 'How can we create services that Chinese people can use, from outside of China?'"

Many Web sites based outside China, including Google's YouTube video site, are regularly blocked by the country's government.

Google's new stance on China was triggered by what it described as a sophisticated computer attack orchestrated from within the country. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., praised Google for disclosing chicanery that "raises serious national security concerns."

Without providing details, Google said it and at least 20 other major companies from the Internet, financial services, technology, media and chemical industries were targeted. The heist lifted some of Google's intellectual property but didn't get any information about the users of its services, the company said. Google has passed along what it knows so far to U.S. authorities and other affected companies.

It does not appear that any U.S. government agencies or Web sites were affected by the attack, according to two U.S. administration officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The assault on Google appeared primarily aimed at breaking into the company's e-mail service, "Gmail," in an attempt to pry into the accounts of human right activists protesting the Chinese government's policies.

Only two e-mail accounts were infiltrated in these attacks, Google said, and the intruders were only able to see subject lines and the dates that the individual accounts were created. None of the content written within the body of the e-mails leaked out, Google said.

As part of its investigation into that incident, Google stumbled onto another scam that was more successful. Google said dozens of activists fighting the Chinese government's policies fell prey to ruses commonly known as "phishing" or malware. The victims live in the United States, Europe and China, Google said.

Phishing involves malicious e-mails urging the recipients to open an attachment or visit a link that they're conned into believing comes from a friend or legitimate company. Clicking on a phishing link of installs malware — malicious software — on to computers.

Once it's installed on a computer, malware can be used as a surveillance tool that can obtain passwords and unlock e-mail accounts.

Google's unfettered search results won't necessarily ensure more information will be made available to the average person in China because the government could still use its own filtering tools, said Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director for Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog group.

"The Chinese government is one of the most efficient in terms of censoring the Web," she said. The blocking technology has proven so effective that it's become known as the "Great Firewall of China."

Zhang Fei will not be pleased.

Hacking is such a violation on so many levels.

Hopefully China acknowledges the fact that to keep major international investors in the country, they will have to change their political beliefs. I have a feeling that once Google decides to pull out, a lot of other distressed firms will follow.

Baidu will be the biggest winner in this if Google leaves China.

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Originally Posted by Gilgamesh (Post 6767648)

Hacking is such a violation on so many levels.

I used to map hack in Starcraft/Broodwar

FINALLY! FUCK! Google comes to its senses, and as one of the leading tech companies in the world THEY have to set the standard. Do not sell out to corrupt governments!

This is just the first minor situation that proves that despite what everyone thinks, China is not going to become a "power" in the world. Their boom will continue for a while, but they will never be anything more than a place to get really cheap things manufactured.

I give Google kudos for taking a hard step here towards China. Yes, it will hurt the business side of things for sure with so many internet users in China and growing. But man you gotta love that finally a Fortune 500 company comes out in the open and publicly criticize the Chinese government internet policies.

wait so they pull out of china, then what?

doesn't mean the Chinese hackers aren't going to hack them or human rights activists....? This achieves...nothing!

China censors pornography and violent contents on the internet, I actually dont mind if I have kids...so you want your kids browsing porns all day?

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Originally Posted by Jingwu3 (Post 6767773)

China censors pornography and violent contents on the internet, I actually dont mind if I have kids...so you want your kids browsing porns all day?

As a parent I think you would want to make that decision for your kids rather than have to government deciding for your kids on what they should watch.

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Originally Posted by Jingwu3 (Post 6767773)

China censors pornography and violent contents on the internet, I actually dont mind if I have kids...so you want your kids browsing porns all day?

I wouldn't mind, its part of life (knowing that such things exist). Its up to the parents to explain what it is.

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Originally Posted by Carl Johnson (Post 6767781)

As a parent I think you would want to make that decision for your kids rather than have to government deciding for your kids on what they should watch.

Easier said than done...like our parents could make us not browsing porn.

Seriously, when I was in Shanghai working last year, the only sites that I couldnt go were some pornography sites, wikipedia in Chinese, and some Taiwanese websites..other than that I am totally fine, you are free to dis the government too, as long as you don't try to start shit like organizing a protest. Other than that I actually felt its more free than here..for example in downtown Shanghai you feel extremely safe to walk at night..like extremely safe. but in vancouver its not so.

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Originally Posted by Jingwu3 (Post 6767792)

go look up "Tiananmen Square 1989" in any google site (other than china), then proceed to do the same in Google China - tell us what you differences you observe.
The "Pornography and violent acts" are only part of the story, the Chinese government actively monitors and censors a huge amount of content, mostly related to *surprise surprise* politics and issues of "national security". Every piece of electronic information that passes through China is scanned electronically for keywords, with potential "offenders" being examined more closely by government officials, and if deemed a risk to national "security" (ie: contains words... COMMUNIST, TIBET, etc...) then either it is censored (ie: 404 error in China) or if it's an e-mail they either examine ALL your e-mails in depth or they just arrest you and make you "disappear from history"

Let me ask you a question - how many news sources are in China? How do you know precisely "what is news" when there is only one source (xinhua news agency, owned and operated at the base level by the communist party of China)? I am pretty sure you have gone to high school, and one of the things you learn doing your research papers is that to prove a fact you need more than one source.

The safety problem with downtown has to do with the amount of people. Although I have never been to Shanghai I imagine it's downtown core to be something like Hong Kong's (ie: full of people 24/7), whereas in Canada, since downtown is a strictly office/business district, nights and weekends are pretty much dead (minus the entertainment district of course). More people = you feel more secure, a simple psychological effect.

So what if you can make comments about the government when they only have one party?

All in all, there is one thing I always say - that is, a government is there to lead, not to control

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jingwu3 (Post 6767773)

China censors pornography and violent contents on the internet, I actually dont mind if I have kids...so you want your kids browsing porns all day?

As an adult I think it should be my decision If I want to watch some porn or some violent content. If China's so worried about the kids why not give every parent a copy of net nanny.

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Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp (Post 6767724)

too bad most scholars that actually have credentials are saying China is already considered a world power, but you are god on revscene so you win.
I agree with google in every sense though.

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Originally Posted by Captain Picard (Post 6767818)

Well, I have to say your post is one of the better educated ones on revscene, one that an intelligent conversation could be carried out, so I'll give you kudos for that.

You are right that the contents on China's internet is censored..but let me assure you you won't get arrested or dissapear all of a sudden just because you try to write an article about Tienanmen or what not. The content will simply get deleted - but of course if you do it too many times you would attract some attention from the government, but why would you want to do it?

The way I See it, although I surely dont like any censorship, but as I have been working in Shanghai for quite some times and have alot of indepth contact with the local Chinese, I really feel that the Chinese people in general is not ready for democracy yet. Not that I support the current government, but if you have a chance to go to the rural provinces and work with the people there, you will see very quickly why democracy will not work in China, at least for now. Have a short conversation and you will quickly see how a great deal of Chinese locals are actually quite primitive - they don't know what democracy is and do not care, as long as the government keeps them fed they are happy. This is a rough description, but it is the simple truth.

Before I work in China I thought I would never step onto a communist country, but once I lived there for a long period of time, I am actually convinced that the current mental state of the Chinese people actually requires a government like that, to give them democracy at this point will cause chaos and destory China, both the Chinese government and the Americans know that, and I guess thats what the Americans want too.

Simply put, democracy is good, and I would like to see it happen in China, but surely not for now, good example would be Africa - The west tried to teach them democracy, and look what happened?

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Originally Posted by fetched (Post 6767832)

too bad most scholars that actually have credentials are saying China is already considered a world power, but you are god on revscene so you win.
I agree with google in every sense though.

Too bad scholars still breathe, eat, sleep like the rest of us. Having credentials does not mean that whatever they say should not be questioned.

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Originally Posted by Captain Picard (Post 6767661)

china will just block google. like they did with facebook, youtube, appledaily etc

china already have baidu and a hundred thousand different replacement which have a much larger user base in china then google

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Originally Posted by terkan (Post 6767854)

Too bad scholars still breathe, eat, sleep like the rest of us. Having credentials does not mean that whatever they say should not be questioned.

Um..... Animals also breathe, eat, sleep like the rest of us. Do we compare ourselves to them?
Scholars unlike us that have normal jobs, have the in depth knowledge, research, and trust to acknowledge China being the next powerhouse, after all, it is their job to study these claims.
Try to read Skinny's claim, too bad I can't fail his ass.
China is already a power in the world. China being a super power is just a matter of time.
Do i need to pull out articles where world leaders have said China is the next super power? But nah, Skinny is always right on revscene, only.

For years, we have been told "you better learn Mandarin! You will need to know it to get ahead". But again and again, they are continuously proven wrong. You don't need to learn mandarin to do anything, and the only reason to deal with China is to source cheap manufacturing. Companies like Google tried to prove otherwise, but look what ended up happening.

This just proves my point. China may be rich, and they may be 'powerful' but they contribute nothing to the world. And in a few years, people will be switching to India in droves for cheap manufacturing, so China will lose the one thing that does make them relevant outside China.

PS: Quit trying to make this thread about me. If you disagree with me, fine. A lot of people do. But don't make this about me.

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Originally Posted by Jingwu3 (Post 6767792)

you are free to dis the government too, as long as you don't try to start shit like organizing a protest. Other than that I actually felt its more free than here..for example in downtown Shanghai you feel extremely safe to walk at night..like extremely safe. but in vancouver its not so.

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Originally Posted by Jingwu3 (Post 6767853)

You are right that the contents on China's internet is censored..but let me assure you you won't get arrested or dissapear all of a sudden just because you try to write an article about Tienanmen or what not. The content will simply get deleted - but of course if you do it too many times you would attract some attention from the government, but why would you want to do it?

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Not that I support the current government, but if you have a chance to go to the rural provinces and work with the people there, you will see very quickly why democracy will not work in China, at least for now.

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Simply put, democracy is good, and I would like to see it happen in China, but surely not for now, good example would be Africa - The west tried to teach them democracy, and look what happened?

You make an easy bitch. If I was in charge of China, I'd want more ppl like you. Makes my news agency's job easier. You gotta tell me where you went to school.

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Chinese locals are actually quite primitive - they don't know what democracy is and do not care, as long as the government keeps them fed they are happy.

And I'd make sure there's plenty of these ppl around too.

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Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp (Post 6767980)

Businesses deal with China not only because of the cheap manufacturing. As long as China continues to have 1 Billion+ people, it will stay "powerful' and rich. It doesn't matter if people shift manufacturing to India, if the population of India does not outstrip China's by a far margin, the best India can be is a rival to China (Maybe better of the two, who knows).

China WILL stay relevant in the world . What do 90% of countries contribute to the world that makes China only relevant because of its manufacturing?

The fact that China is further developed allows for the more technological advanced businesses to open a branch in China, rather then India.