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It is very interesting that the State Department is playing second fiddle to Google here. Intuitively I feel this has pretty far reaching consequences. - Appar
by mixmax 17y ago
It 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 :-)
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago> Google can, and this, combined with their size, konwledge and brand, makes them a strong player in international politics. Nothing new here. Big business has been taking a leadership role in international politics for decades. See: WTO.
- mixmax 17y agoYou're right, and it seems to be an escalating trend. There are plenty of examples, but none as big as this. Maybe there will be more if the trend continues.
- madh 17y agoThe corporation has been immensely powerful for hundreds of years, e.g., United Fruit and British East India Company.
- ajb 17y agoI'm not sure Google were wise to be all that public about this either. If China decides to bear a grudge, things could get very nasty for them.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- plinkplonk 17y ago"If China decides to bear a grudge, things could get very nasty for them." How? Once Google moves out of China what can the Chinese government do to them?
- mattmanser 17y agoAttack them daily
- 17y ago
- notaddicted 17y agocopying over from other thread: "Gossip from within google.cn is Shanghai office used as CN gov attack stage in US source code network." - wikileaks: http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7689041346 http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7689041346 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049154 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049154) i.e. (rumors) Google know who was attacked because it was done out of their own office
- roc 17y agoI was wondering if the real problem wasn't that Google discovered the attack vectors were essentially government-mandated holes. That is, the required local hires, the mandatory native firm partner, etc, It could be that the rules don't allow enough control over those resources to achieve acceptable risk. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense that Google would issue a public threat to close the office. Nothing else would carry as much weight and if the current terms are untenable, there's essentially no risk.
- crocowhile 17y ago>The fact that this is being uncovered by Google and not the government is very interesting. If I understand correctly, google find out because they were companies using the google enterprise framework. Google was their IT dept. It doesn't surprise me they uncovered it first.
- jey 17y ago[citation needed]
- crocowhile 17y agoYeah, it seems I was wrong and it was some hole in adobe products: http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_adobe-software-may-have-been-exploited-in-cyber-attack_1334387 http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_adobe-software-may-ha...
- jey 17y agoThat's just random speculation. Sure, Acrobat could have been used to get malware into Google, but just because Adobe released a security patch for Acrobat at around the same time as Google's announcement doesn't mean they're related.
- joubert 17y agoHow would the Govt. know a company's servers have been hacked into unless the company discloses it?
- bilbo0s 17y agoOr unless the Govt discloses that they know. COINTEL anyone?
- Hoff 17y agoWith a tap into any of various of the major network pipes, the central difficulty would involve sifting through the vast mounds of data that result. I can often tell when somebody has had their servers hacked, and I just watch my own servers.
- lyudmil 17y agoThis is pure speculation, but if the US government is willing to engage China on the back of what Google reported, China must have done something which threatens to weaken the US economy more than worsening their relationship with the Chinese government would. It is no secret that the US and Chinese economies have a highly symbiotic relationship and are heavily dependent on each other - Americans buy the most Chinese production out of anyone else, while China is the main creditor of the US (just to name two examples). If the US is willing to make the tradeoff I mentioned before, it should illustrate the gravity of what the Chinese government has done. That seems like a pretty scary scenario to me. My guess is that the US government will not do anything big to seriously engage China on civil rights. I'm not even sure if I should hope they do or not. Again, this is only speculation, but fascinating.
- jacquesm 17y agoYou can bet that there is a lot going on under water that will never ever reach the press. I wouldn't be so sure that the roles are as clearly defined as it seems at this moment.
- jauer 17y agoI'm curious as to why it took so long for this issue to come out in public, and why it came out in public so strongly as it did in this case. Targeted attacks on specific diplomatic, economic, and infrastructure targets from China were, I thought, widely known of for the past few years. China targeting Tibeten diplomatic traffic: www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-746.pdf Northrop-Grumman report: http://www.uscc.gov/researchpapers/2009/NorthropGrumman_PRC_Cyber_Paper_FINAL_Approved%20Report_16Oct2009.pdf http://www.uscc.gov/researchpapers/2009/NorthropGrumman_PRC_... Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GhostNet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GhostNet MI5 reports China targeting UK government in 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7123970.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7123970.stm
- jacoblyles 17y agoWhat I've found most interesting in this news article is the oddly strong role that Google is playing in global politics. Corporations taking a strong line negotiating with nation-states.
- andrewljohnson 17y agoThe thing is, it's not embarrassing for the US government. I would guess they were told about the announcement way before it happened. The thing is, Google can make this accusation and be above suspicion. If the US government made tis accusation, it would turn into a PR fight and no one would know who to believe.