6 ms·

Yahoo knew of attacks before Google, kept mum

45 points by briansmith 17y ago

lucifer 17y ago
Confession time: I also knew of concerted Chinese attacks "before Google" and kept mum. For the past few years, day after day, countless phishing and spam kept arriving in my inbox with .cn URLs but I kept it to myself.
mahmud 17y ago
Yahoo just rolls over and takes it. The sad thing is, when China is a profitable enough market, and companies who sucked up to the regime are ready to capitalize on their presence there, Yahoo itself will not be around to reap the benefits.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  Like probably most other companies doing business in China, and probably for years. Not defending it, just pointing out that this one decision of Yahoo's is, unfortunately, normal.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
For the reading impaired: Analysts say many foreign multinationals in fact may occasionally bend over backwards to appease Beijing, coveting the vast potential market in what will soon be the world's second-largest economy. Since Google reported the attacks, only Adobe Systems Inc, Juniper Networks Inc and Rackspace Hosting Inc have acknowledged experiencing similar incidents. But the majority of victims have remained silent.
DougBTX 17y ago
"I don't understand how that helps anything. I don't understand how that helps us and I don't understand how that helps China," Ballmer said. With a quote like that, you have no idea what question Ballmer was asked, what exactly "that" refers to.
- sjs 17y ago
  The paragraph above that one is enough context, no? He was asked about pulling out of China. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday the software giant had no plans to pull out of China. Microsoft is chiefly interested in getting Beijing to crack down on intellectual property rights, and has no desire to ruffle relations, analysts said.
  - nitrogen 17y ago
    The paragraph above is not a quote of Ballmer. There is no actual context provided to say what Ballmer meant by "that," only what the reporter says Ballmer meant. Perhaps that is what the GP meant.
metatronscube 17y ago
Is Yahoo still around?
- CamperBob 17y ago
  I think they were bought by AltaVista...
jsm386 17y ago
Is that surprising given Yahoo's history with China? If your not familiar, the reporter waited until the closing paragraphs to put this in proper context: In 2007, Yahoo outraged human rights activists after accusations that the Internet giant had handed over the mail, data on online activity and Internet addresses of suspected dissidents to Chinese officials. Though Yahoo eventually settled the lawsuits brought by lawyers acting on behalf of jailed dissidents. The suit, advanced by the Washington D.C.-based World Organization for Human Rights USA, maintained that Yahoo had benefited financially by working with Chinese authorities. Yahoo also no longer maintains its own Internet site in China. In 2005, Yahoo handed over exclusive rights to the "Yahoo China" brand name and folded its Chinese mail, messaging and other operations into the Alibaba Group, in a $1 billion deal that gave Yahoo a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.
- briansmith 17y ago
  In other words, Yahoo makes money in China indirectly so they can't be as easily blamed for their behavior.
freetard 17y ago
And yet people still think of Google as more evil than Yahoo. Even when Yahoo has sent some bloggers to jail and now that.
- cema 17y ago
  They do? I am surprised. In what circles?
  - freetard 17y ago
    You don't read the news or blogs? There's not a single day without an article questioning Google evilness when it comes to our data. I never see any about Yahoo.
    - philwelch 17y ago
      Google has reached the backlash stage in the PR cycle, Yahoo has passed into the too-established-to-be-interesting stage.
      - cema 17y ago
        Could be. It feels that Google is the "in" company in more ways than one.
    - cema 17y ago
      Yes, in the press. My question was more about people ("real people you meet" versus "people you read about"), but I agree -- the press has played with the "don't be evil" at leisure, and rightly so (imho). Still the question about the real people stands.
    - antipaganda 17y ago
      Yes, nobody questions Yahoo's evilness. That should tell you something.
sh1mmer 17y ago
As someone who works at Yahoo I'm going to say I have no guilt over China. If you think China commits human rights violations stop doing business with them yourself. That means not buying anything made in China, including anything made by Apple. The human rights abuses in China are sad, and upsetting. I'm a member of Amnesty and I care about stopping them. However, western business operating in China have an ability to change the market and increase the standard of living and the freedoms in that country through increased wealth and communication. This story isn't (or shouldn't) be about Yahoo!'s operations in China it should be about co-operation between companies to prevent cyber-terrorism wherever it's from. I'd like to think next time we as a company are more forthcoming with information to others, so they have more notice of potential threats. N.B These views are my own and don't necessarily represent Yahoo!'s views, yada, yada
- antipaganda 17y ago
  Does it help China increase the standard of living when Yahoo gets human rights campaigners thrown in jail?
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    That depends whether the instability brought by poking a corrupt regime is good or bad. On the one hand the human rights campaigners could improve democracy and help bring China into the modern world, whilst on the other hand promoting the faults of their corrupt regime could easily result in anarchy and martial law if there was ever an uprising. The major problem here is that an uprising would quickly cause the cost of production to go through the roof in China, forcing virtually every industry to pull out of the country and relocate elsewhere. This major export hit to the Chinese economy could collapse their entire system, and disregarding the international effects, it could easily land China in the situation of North Korea. Honestly, with the fact that China could so easily result in a massive North Korea, how would that help the standard of living? China isn't a simple situation and assigning childish ethics to the country will resolve nothing. The simple allowance of unions in China could easily result in another global recession. A college strike here in Ontario is threatening the provinces recovery as it may delay the graduation of all those getting retrained due to the financial crisis. Simply imagine what happened if unionization occurred throughout China and the ramifications for the countries trade. China is going to require baby steps to bring it into a democratic and free world, anything faster could be an international economic disaster on the scale of the great depression.
dirtbox 17y ago
China has been all out attacking various networks both corporate and government all over the world since at least 2003 so it puzzles me why this is news to anyone. Google knew all about that at the time, but they only publicly lash out now when they're on the the receiving end? Seems rather self serving. Especially considering Google is not even as popular as the Alibaba Group owned Yahoo in China, let alone the many Chinese search engines.
ahlatimer 17y ago
Correct me if I'm reading this wrong, but doesn't this just mean that Yahoo knew about the attacks before Google told them? Google could have been aware of the attacks well before they told Yahoo about it, and there's no indication (given the information in the body of the article) that Yahoo knew first (likewise, the inverse is true).
apower 17y ago
Look people, Google is not above anybody else. Google turned over information to the Indian government to throw some guy in jail for making some remark on a website about the government. Google is just as much against free speech and corroborating with governments against individual rights when it comes to making money. http://binaryday.com/2008/05/18/is-the-arrest-of-rahul-krishnakumar-vaid-an-attack-on-free-speech/ http://binaryday.com/2008/05/18/is-the-arrest-of-rahul-krish...

45 points by briansmith 17y ago

Confession time: I also knew of concerted Chinese attacks "before Google" and kept mum. For the past few years, day after day, countless phishing and spam kept arriving in my inbox with .cn URLs but I kept it to myself.

mahmud 17y ago

Yahoo just rolls over and takes it. The sad thing is, when China is a profitable enough market, and companies who sucked up to the regime are ready to capitalize on their presence there, Yahoo itself will not be around to reap the benefits.

nfnaaron 17y ago
Like probably most other companies doing business in China, and probably for years. Not defending it, just pointing out that this one decision of Yahoo's is, unfortunately, normal.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

For the reading impaired: Analysts say many foreign multinationals in fact may occasionally bend over backwards to appease Beijing, coveting the vast potential market in what will soon be the world's second-largest economy. Since Google reported the attacks, only Adobe Systems Inc, Juniper Networks Inc and Rackspace Hosting Inc have acknowledged experiencing similar incidents. But the majority of victims have remained silent.

DougBTX 17y ago

"I don't understand how that helps anything. I don't understand how that helps us and I don't understand how that helps China," Ballmer said. With a quote like that, you have no idea what question Ballmer was asked, what exactly "that" refers to.

sjs 17y ago
The paragraph above that one is enough context, no? He was asked about pulling out of China. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday the software giant had no plans to pull out of China. Microsoft is chiefly interested in getting Beijing to crack down on intellectual property rights, and has no desire to ruffle relations, analysts said.
- nitrogen 17y ago
  The paragraph above is not a quote of Ballmer. There is no actual context provided to say what Ballmer meant by "that," only what the reporter says Ballmer meant. Perhaps that is what the GP meant.

metatronscube 17y ago

Is Yahoo still around?

CamperBob 17y ago
I think they were bought by AltaVista...

jsm386 17y ago

Is that surprising given Yahoo's history with China? If your not familiar, the reporter waited until the closing paragraphs to put this in proper context: In 2007, Yahoo outraged human rights activists after accusations that the Internet giant had handed over the mail, data on online activity and Internet addresses of suspected dissidents to Chinese officials. Though Yahoo eventually settled the lawsuits brought by lawyers acting on behalf of jailed dissidents. The suit, advanced by the Washington D.C.-based World Organization for Human Rights USA, maintained that Yahoo had benefited financially by working with Chinese authorities. Yahoo also no longer maintains its own Internet site in China. In 2005, Yahoo handed over exclusive rights to the "Yahoo China" brand name and folded its Chinese mail, messaging and other operations into the Alibaba Group, in a $1 billion deal that gave Yahoo a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.

briansmith 17y ago
In other words, Yahoo makes money in China indirectly so they can't be as easily blamed for their behavior.

freetard 17y ago

And yet people still think of Google as more evil than Yahoo. Even when Yahoo has sent some bloggers to jail and now that.

cema 17y ago
They do? I am surprised. In what circles?
- freetard 17y ago
  You don't read the news or blogs? There's not a single day without an article questioning Google evilness when it comes to our data. I never see any about Yahoo.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    Google has reached the backlash stage in the PR cycle, Yahoo has passed into the too-established-to-be-interesting stage.
    - cema 17y ago
      Could be. It feels that Google is the "in" company in more ways than one.
  - cema 17y ago
    Yes, in the press. My question was more about people ("real people you meet" versus "people you read about"), but I agree -- the press has played with the "don't be evil" at leisure, and rightly so (imho). Still the question about the real people stands.
  - antipaganda 17y ago
    Yes, nobody questions Yahoo's evilness. That should tell you something.

sh1mmer 17y ago

As someone who works at Yahoo I'm going to say I have no guilt over China. If you think China commits human rights violations stop doing business with them yourself. That means not buying anything made in China, including anything made by Apple. The human rights abuses in China are sad, and upsetting. I'm a member of Amnesty and I care about stopping them. However, western business operating in China have an ability to change the market and increase the standard of living and the freedoms in that country through increased wealth and communication. This story isn't (or shouldn't) be about Yahoo!'s operations in China it should be about co-operation between companies to prevent cyber-terrorism wherever it's from. I'd like to think next time we as a company are more forthcoming with information to others, so they have more notice of potential threats. N.B These views are my own and don't necessarily represent Yahoo!'s views, yada, yada

antipaganda 17y ago
Does it help China increase the standard of living when Yahoo gets human rights campaigners thrown in jail?
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  That depends whether the instability brought by poking a corrupt regime is good or bad. On the one hand the human rights campaigners could improve democracy and help bring China into the modern world, whilst on the other hand promoting the faults of their corrupt regime could easily result in anarchy and martial law if there was ever an uprising. The major problem here is that an uprising would quickly cause the cost of production to go through the roof in China, forcing virtually every industry to pull out of the country and relocate elsewhere. This major export hit to the Chinese economy could collapse their entire system, and disregarding the international effects, it could easily land China in the situation of North Korea. Honestly, with the fact that China could so easily result in a massive North Korea, how would that help the standard of living? China isn't a simple situation and assigning childish ethics to the country will resolve nothing. The simple allowance of unions in China could easily result in another global recession. A college strike here in Ontario is threatening the provinces recovery as it may delay the graduation of all those getting retrained due to the financial crisis. Simply imagine what happened if unionization occurred throughout China and the ramifications for the countries trade. China is going to require baby steps to bring it into a democratic and free world, anything faster could be an international economic disaster on the scale of the great depression.

dirtbox 17y ago

China has been all out attacking various networks both corporate and government all over the world since at least 2003 so it puzzles me why this is news to anyone. Google knew all about that at the time, but they only publicly lash out now when they're on the the receiving end? Seems rather self serving. Especially considering Google is not even as popular as the Alibaba Group owned Yahoo in China, let alone the many Chinese search engines.

ahlatimer 17y ago

Correct me if I'm reading this wrong, but doesn't this just mean that Yahoo knew about the attacks before Google told them? Google could have been aware of the attacks well before they told Yahoo about it, and there's no indication (given the information in the body of the article) that Yahoo knew first (likewise, the inverse is true).

apower 17y ago

Look people, Google is not above anybody else. Google turned over information to the Indian government to throw some guy in jail for making some remark on a website about the government. Google is just as much against free speech and corroborating with governments against individual rights when it comes to making money. http://binaryday.com/2008/05/18/is-the-arrest-of-rahul-krishnakumar-vaid-an-attack-on-free-speech/ http://binaryday.com/2008/05/18/is-the-arrest-of-rahul-krish...