Saturday, March 6, 2010
Tough Month m:P
Posted by T3echUL3ss0n at 1:48 AM
Friday, March 5, 2010
Sino-American Tensions -- Google vs. China : Hack Attacks
Not long ago, Google gave another reason for pulling out of China. Google announced Tuesday that it had been the target of a “highly sophisticated” and coordinated hack attack against its corporate network. The attack was dubbed "Operation Aurora" by McAfee due to the belief that this is the name the hackers used for their mission.
It said the hackers had stolen intellectual property and sought access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. It was reported that the recent cyberattacks against Google and more than 30 other organisations appeared to have originated from computers at two schools in China. One of the schools was identified as the Shanghai Jiaotong University; the other, as the Lanxiang Vocational School, an academic institution in China's Shandong Province with ties to the country's military.
The motive of the attack was coincidentally similar to what the Chinese government is trying to do . Such as sophiscated attack would need large amounts of funding, which may have came from the Chinese government.
However, many non-chinese companies also confirmed the digital assault. Minutes after Google announced its intrusion, Adobe also acknowledged in a blog post that it discovered Jan. 2 that it had also been the target of a “sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies.”. Microsoft also admitted to the flaw in the Internet Explorer browser that allowed the hackers to gain excess to Gmail accounts and such, and published an advisory about the flaw that it already had in the works. Rackspace, a a hosting firm in Texas, was used by the hackers. Rackspace disclosed on its blog this week that it inadvertently played “a very small part” in the hack. The company wrote that “a server at Rackspace was compromised, disabled, and we actively assisted in the investigation of the cyber attack, fully cooperating with all affected parties.”
As the evidence pile up against China, it is not confirmed that China was the culprit behind this. For all we know, this could just be Google's excuse for pulling out of China. The two universities involved in this attack also denied the attack. Inadvertently, this event drags the governments of the two countries into the conflict, as this hack attack might mean that China's military might have been behind this. This does not only affect business opportunities but also increase tensions and suspicions between the two superpowers.
Posted by T3echUL3ss0n at 5:45 AM
Sino-American Tensions -- Google vs. China : Censorship
This was one of the first Sino-American articles that caught my eye, probably because it involved my favorite search engine. So what happened then was that Google decided to pull out of China, partly because of numerous cyber attacks, hacking attempts and the most important, cencorship.
The first topic im going to address is the censorship. Have you ever tried using the China version of Google (www.google.com.cn)?
You get THREE results, and with a note at the bottom, which says that the content is not legal, and will not be shown. It is impossible to get any information on the event on the China Google. I think that's just ridiculous. I understand that the Chinese government is just trying to protect their reputation and improve morale. There have been many peasant uprising in the history of China, and the government does not want another one. It also wants to prevent the population of China to be "Westernized".
Youtube was also made unavaliable in China, due to a video showing Chinese soldiers beating up Tibetian monks.
The image of the historic moment, where a man stands up to an army tank, is also blocked.
However, I believe that the censorship will eventually backfire. The population of China is getting increasingly educated. Use of the Internet will increase rapidly. Broad public access to information and the freedom to create and communicate ideas online are critical to the advancement of knowledge, economic opportunity , and human potential.Broad public access to information and the freedom to create and communicate ideas online are critical to the advancement of knowledge, economic opportunity, and human potential.
There will also be public outrage against the government, as the population get more educated and understand the reasons and implications of censorship. The government is preventing them from learning. Compared to the West, they will have a much less knowledge because of the government, thus impairing what they can achieve.
Google's decision has also garnered them much support from the citizens of China. Bunches of flowers were left for Google right outside their door. Some Web users are showing their support for the company on Twitter, which, though blocked in China, can be accessed by tech-savvy netizens, where they began organizing to take real-world action. At Google offices in China, pictured below, fans of the company gathered, some bearing flowers and messages wishing Google well. The so-called “flower campaign” gave rise to several slogans, such as “Farewell for Reunion” and “GoogleBye.”
In censoring sensitive information, China is fighting the Internet. At the rate the internet is expanding, it is obvious who wins and who loses.
Google : 1 China : 0
Posted by T3echUL3ss0n at 4:13 AM
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Map of Maycomb County
Posted by T3echUL3ss0n at 12:01 AM
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sino-American Tensions -- Google vs. China : Overview
In recent news, there have been an increasing number of reports of tensions between the biggest superpowers, US and China. The government is not always necessarily involved, as shown with the case of Google.
Here is a brief overview of the event:
"In a lengthy blog post today, Google announced that it would no longer censor its Chinese search engine, even if it means pulling out of China entirely. This comes in the wake of a wide-ranging attack on its infrastructure targeting Chinese human rights activists. In the post, Google
outlined in rather striking detail a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” that occurred last month, targeting around 20 companies. In its investigation, the search giant found that the attackers’ primary objective was accessingGmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It also found that dozens of other Gmail accounts owned by human rights activists worldwide were compromised, most likely due to phishing scams or malware.
Google wouldn’t say it, but implications are that the Chinese government had something to do with these attacks.
As a result of the attacks, Google has decided to reassess its presence in China. The Chinese government and Google have fought over censorship before, but currently the search engine does block certain results (such as images of the Tiananmen Square massacre).
Now Google’s making it clear that it won’t comply with China’s demands any longer. Here’s the key paragraph from the Google post:
“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. 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. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
Posted by T3echUL3ss0n at 4:36 AM
Thursday, February 11, 2010
First post testing
yay first post
Posted by T3echUL3ss0n at 4:05 AM
