George Post 4 - Google Hacked

By George

I have been hearing the “noise” that Google had some issues in China and that it had something to do with being hacked into. What with full time work, two classes and playoff football going on I had a hard time focusing in on exactly what was going on.

When Anjali told us about the post on Google - I thought that it was a chance to catch up on the news. Well, not the case. The article is primarily a background piece on Google itself and their struggles in China. Recognizing that this couldn’t be the story that I had been seeing all the headlines I dug a little deeper and got the story – and it is plenty serious with far reaching implications. Rather than focusing on the discussion questions which aren’t as pertinent after the cyber attacks I will provide some perspective on the current story.

When Google entered the China Market in 2006 they knew that they were compromising their motto and mission of “do no evil”. The two founders debated over entering the market for several essential reasons:
- Forced Censorship, being forced to filter their search results
- Erosion of the quality of their product in China
- Government Favored Competitors
- Being used as a China government pawn to uncover dissidents

In the end they moved forward because they thought they could make money without necessarily hurting anyone and at the same time allow “some” information to flow across borders.

Now they recognize they were wrong to have ever expanded into China and they have taken steps “pull out”. The mentioned cyber attacks were the catalyst. These attacks weren’t your garden variety they were attacks against the Internet, finance, technology and media. Google believes the primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts (don;t we have gmail?) of Chinese human rights activists and that the effort is being directed by the individuals in the Chinese government. Understanding what the consequences are for individuals captured “in the web” is far too much evil involvement for Google.

“The broader pictures speaks to the new world of international information espionage, where states and their agents use the techniques and tools of the hacking world to gain information from and advantage over enemies and rivals, both state and commercial.

China has been suspected as the source of numerous cyber attacks, not only in the United States but in Europe and else where..In fact, India's national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan, was quoted in the Times of India as saying that his office and other Indian government departments were also targeted on Dec 15, the same day that Google and other American organisations were targeted.A confidential FBI report, recently leaked, alleged that China has 30,000 military cyberspies, plus more than 150,000 private-sector computer experts.
The report, cited by an article in the Daily Beast, an American news reporting and opinion website, likened the potential destructive power of cyber attacks to weapons of mass destruction”.

(source - http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/18frankching2101/Article/index_htm)l

I haven’t thought about the cold war days in quite some time but the information in the articles I have read sound all to familiar to the KGB stories . We might want to check our hotel rooms real closely!