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State Department Makes Statement on Google Operations in China
- ilamont 17y agoThe State Department is being a bit hypocritical here. If China must give an explanation for its alleged cyberattacks/hacking attempts on gmail, then the U.S. government should also give an explanation for its NSA-sponsored eavesdropping/hacking/snooping of other countries' citizens' email, phone conversations, and other communications.
- flatline 17y agoYes but righteous indignation is so much easier to muster. Honestly though, this is more about China's history of human rights violations than the hacking attempts themselves.
- jacquesm 17y agoThe time for google to make principled stances on that subject is long past, they already let the $ go before their principles. You can't turn around a couple of years later and sincerely say that you want to make the principle now your paramount reason for a move. The time for principled stances is when things happen, or when they come to light. The whole human rights thing is just so much window dressing and PR spin.
- alex_c 17y agoPrinciples aside, you have to admit, "Google threatening to pull out of China", or, if it comes to that, "Google pulls out of China", is a much stronger headline than "Google not going into China".
- jacquesm 17y agoI don't think so. If they had loudly and publicly stated that they were not going to do any business in China because of the human rights violations there I think it would have been a much stronger statement. Now it looks to me as though they figure the income they make in China isn't worth the continued PR headache, or, alternatively, they decided to leave anyway and they use the occasion to polish up their image. I'm very cynical when it comes to large companies doing things for the public good, but you could already tell that I guess. Shell, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google (and many others beside) they all have their skeletons in the cupboard in this respect.
- alex_c 17y agoI guess we'll have to disagree regarding the headlines. Still, if you apply the cynical view consistently, then Google refusing to do business in China can be seen as Google making a calculation, deciding they can't make enough money in China to justify the headache/bad PR, and claiming the decision is because of human rights issues. Same interpretation, 2 years earlier.
- jacquesm 17y agoI think there is a substantial difference between saying a loud and clear 'No!' to the largest growth market on the planet before entering or saying it after several years of mapping that market. For sure the calculation today is a lot more refined than it was several years ago, and probably the figures in the spreadsheets are smaller than they were back then.
- philwelch 17y agoAny statement Google makes in 2010 is much stronger than any statement Google could have made in 2006, when they first went into China.
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- smokinjuan 17y ago>I think it would have been a much stronger statement. To who are they trying to make a statement? If to "the rest of the world" then your statement makes sense. However, if they're trying to make a statement to the Chinese population it's probably better that google demonstrates their services worth then pulls the plug.
- jacquesm 17y agoIf the Chinese population would figure very high in their book then they would have made the statement earlier, and that statement would have been in Chinese, not in English. It is clearly intended for consumption by the rest of the world.
- astine 17y agoI think that depends mostly on spin. For example: "After a thorough investigation of business opportunities in China, Google has decided not to touch the place with a ten-foot pole." Or: "Google on China: F!@# NO!"
- patio11 17y agoI should point out that the State Department does not wiretap Chinese citizens phones so that they know which little old lady to beat to death. That is China's job. Returning you now to your regularly scheduled moral relativism.
- sfk 17y agoAnd this is the job of the U.S.: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/ http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/
- stanleydrew 17y agoHow do you know that's true?
- roc 17y agoBecause the CIA isn't part of the State Department?
- cakesy 17y agoActually you are wrong. It is quite common for countries to monitor other countries communications in the past (Australia for the US), becuase there are no rules in Australia against monitoring US citizens, only forbidding them from monitoring Australia Citizens without proper procedure.
- Quarrelsome 17y agoOr perhaps clear up that whole "Extraordinary rendition" debacle and press charges against those that set it in motion.
- mixmax 17y agoIt is very interesting that the State Department is playing second fiddle to Google here. Intuitively I feel this has pretty far reaching consequences. - Apparently Google has uncovered a chinese attempt to infiltrate a number of American companies[1]. The fact that this is being uncovered by Google and not the government is very interesting. And potentially very embarrasing for the state. - America hasn't engaged China in relation to human rights, probably due to global politics which tends to tie you up in consensus, conventions and diplomacy. Google has done so in a very clear and public way. - The state department is taking Googles lead. Hilary Clinton is playing catch-up. She even says so in the statement: "We have been briefed by Google" This indicates an enormous shift in power. [1] - The American government might have been aware of this or even uncovered it themselves, which I personally doubt.
- maukdaddy 17y agoThe State Dept. isn't playing second fiddle. They simply can NOT come out as publicly as Google did, for many reasons. As the "official" foreign voice of the US Govt there are serious repercussions to coming right out and accusing China. Secondly, they would not tip their hand on any intelligence they received, or were actively receiving, on Chinese infiltrations in cyberspace. While our Gov't isn't very good at some things, I can guarantee that they were aware of what was going on. There have been many well-publicized instances over the past 10 years where the Govt' has uncovered intrusions into commercial companies.
- mixmax 17y agoThat's exactly my primary point - Government, as you say, can not come out publicly and have their hands tied in many ways. Google can, and this, combined with their size, konwledge and brand, makes them a strong player in international politics. In this particular instance they are clearly the lead that everyone else, including the state department, follows. As for your second point, I totally agree. There might be a good chance the government knew, I'm no security expert so I'll refrain from taking a stance. That's why I added the footnote :-)
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- andreyf 17y agoWe have been briefed by Google on these allegations The pertinent question is "when?". Google reported the attacks began in mid-December. NYT reported at least some against the 34 other companies occurred last week. Drummond said the Chinese government had been briefed before yesterday's statement. I have trouble believing The State Department hasn't been involved until now.
- pragmatic 17y agoChinese attacks in Cyberspace. Wow, straight out of a William Gibson novel.
- JulianMorrison 17y agoHave you read Halting State?
- sophacles 17y agoOhhh good book. Im a big fan of the notion of MMO as spygame -- it just makes so much sense. True plausible denyability ftw.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- brown9-2 17y agoFor those of us that have not... I'm guessing this post counts as a recommendation?
- JulianMorrison 17y agoYes indeed. Very good book. What's amusing is that it was intended to be set a decade or two in the future, but most of the "futuristic" plot twists have already happened.
- delackner 17y agoSeriously? I found Accelerando (same author) to be incredibly forced, written in the style of a Wired magazine puff piece.
- lincolnq 17y ago1) Charles Stross (cstross) reads and comments here on HN, so be nice :) 2) That was the whole point of Accelerando. That said, I really liked Halting State and Saturn's Children, but not Accelerando as much (it was too crazy for me).
- yan 17y agoThis whole situation definitely feels like the start of something much larger than just Google pulling out of China.
- andrewvc 17y agoAgreed, the amount of tight lipped cautiousness with which all parties are proceeding is mighty fishy.
- samdk 17y agoI don't think I'd call Google's announcement either 'tight-lipped' or 'cautious'. It was unprecedented.
- Alex3917 17y ago"This whole situation definitely feels like the start of something much larger than just Google pulling out of China." The assumption in government (and of security researchers) right now is that every time you send an email, it gets read by 25 or so countries. However, they haven't bothered to tell the general public this yet. My guess is that they are going to use this incident to either start to break this news to the general public, or else push through additional computer security measures. Possibly both.
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- tptacek 17y agoUgh. The State Department uses sIFR.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoIronic given the attacks were via a 3rd party, proprietary, monopoly-market share, monoculture, bloated, insecure, not-very-good program for reading ISO standard files (Adobe Reader). Though Google said many of the attacks were via standard keyloggers. Similar to the recent, "don't internet bank via Windows" warnings, it appears that anyone involved with human rights should shift follow the same advice for all their online correspondence. But that tech/security element seems to be lost because of the geopolitical drama.
- sethg 17y agoInteresting. I would have expected the government to respond with something completely bland along the lines of “Google is a private company that makes its own decisions about international operations... Our law-enforcement authorities, including FBI Counterintelligence, are always vigilant against computer crime, but we cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.” ISTM that nationalist elements within China would love to paint Western businesses that they disapprove of as arms of the CIA, and that if the US is too vocal in support of Google, then they give fodder to those nationalists (and risk damaging US commercial interests in China). I assume that the State Department considered this factor and decided that nevertheless, they had to speak up for an open international Internet.
- amix 17y agoYou are working for Google and you have evil motives. You have access to Gmail's data, search logs and Google Documents (among other things). With this information it's pretty damn easy to hack anyone that uses Google products - - as users and companies hold a lot of sensitive data in emails and Google documents - - especially on Google Apps. This could have been done from Google offices in China, but why not in other countries?
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- grellas 17y agoThe thing that will ultimately undermine the chokehold put by repressive regimes on their oppressed citizens will not be Google as a company nor the U.S. government as a countervailing political force nor the U.N. as a supervening agency nor human rights advocates as a principled opposition - though all these forces are helpful and necessary, they are not in themselves sufficient. It will instead be the sheer wearing force of progressive technological advances that make it harder and harder with each passing day for such regimes ultimately to suppress the free flow of information and the spur toward freedom promoted thereby. With its dramatic action, Google has demonstrated that any given company wielding sufficient power relating to the free flow of information has the capacity to make a big difference in moving to help liberate countries such as China. That company has to show some guts, which Google has done. And it needs to have some core principles, which is really at the heart of being able to act with courage and conviction as Google has done. But none of this would be enough, even if it is backed vocally or sub silentio by the force of the U.S. government, the U.N., and rights advocates. Repressive regimes like China's have gone for decades on their oppressive path in spite of vigorous opposition from the west (remember the long stretch when the U.S. would not even recognize the existence of the Chinese government) and have scarcely changed their worst policies over that time. The change, then, ultimately has to come from within and it is there that the free flow of information makes all the difference. Knowledge is power, and that is precisely why oppressive regimes always seek to suppress free speech and to control thought through massive propaganda mechanisms. It is the technological juggernaut that is progressively, albeit slowly, undermining the thought-control historically imposed by the Chinese government upon its citizens, and that government will be fighting a losing battle on this front as it becomes virtually impossible, in an exploding information age, ultimately to choke off the free flow of information so desperately needed by oppressed peoples. In this sense, Google's action serves as a proxy for the technology forces that are having this salutary effect. But none of this happens in a vacuum. It takes real people to make real and difficult decisions to bring about the change. And it takes courage to stand up to authoritarian forces. Bravo to Google for taking a tremendous step in the right direction. I hope they stick with it to its logical outcome. It will not be easy.
- jules 17y agoThe technology also makes it easier to monitor citizens.
- lifeisstillgood 17y agohttp://www.csoonline.com/article/print/329164 http://www.csoonline.com/article/print/329164 This is an old article but compares the actions against the Barbary Pirates (US Navy used force to ensure Free Trade) with what US could do with Internet 'piracy' - and no thats not copying CDs.
- barmstrong 17y agoThis feels like a dumb question, but my first reaction to this was wondering how the Secretary of State could be relevant to this or why she is going to make a statement? I don't see what role her words have here or how they could change anything. Can someone enlighten me?