Google and China

My thoughts on Google's "A new approach to China".

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Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

1. I didn't know there are parties that go to the extent to hack accounts of human rights advocates in China.
2. Google have done a great job in ensuring the security of its users' account. The attacks only results in account information (such as date of account was created and subject line) being compromised. Rather than the contents.

..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.

+ Google.cn shutdown means 20% China's search market will be affected.
+ Hundreds of companies, shareholders, and Chinese people will support Google.
+ China gov does not immediately pull plug on google.cn shows Google's weight in China.
+ I support Google in this. China's censorship on search engines has been a-pain-in-the-ass for the Chinese. Too much informations covered-up by the Gov.
- Google will lose $600 million revenue now and $10billion long-term.


More here. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

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p/s: This is still surprising. I thought phishing scam or malware from links in instant messages and email are the most common way, that people should already know that "not to click links from unknown/unconfirmed source".
Anyway, I think its quite clear that who are the ones behind this security attack :)

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.