Google Hacks From China Originated In Two Prominent Schools

[DeSwiss]

Source: Huffington Post (AP)

Google Hacks From China Originated In Two Prominent Schools

Huffington Post | 02/18/10 11:45 PM | AP


Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google China

SAN FRANCISCO — The Internet attacks that may end up driving Google Inc. out of China originated from two prominent schools in the country, according to a story published late Thursday.

The New York Times reported security investigators have traced the hacking to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School in China. The newspaper attributed the information to unnamed people involved in the investigation. Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

The company revealed on Jan. 12 that digital thieves had stolen some of its computer code and tried to break into the accounts of human rights activists opposed to China's policies. The sophisticated theft also targeted the computers of more than 30 other companies, according to security experts. A security weakness in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser is believed to have created an opening for the hackers.

The digital assault was serious enough to prompt Google to confront China's government about censorship rules that weed out politically and culturally sensitive topics from search results in the country. Google says it's prepared to shut down its China-based search engine and possibly shut down all of its offices in the country unless the ruling party loosens its restrictions on free speech. Google and the government are still discussing a possible compromise.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/18/google-hacks-from-china-o_n_468361.html

[pampango]

1. Here's the NY Times article: Two Chinese Schools Said to Be Tied to Online Attacks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/technology/19china.html?hp

"the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources. Tracing the attacks further back, to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school, is a breakthrough in a difficult task. Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school."

"Jiaotong has one of China’s top computer science programs. Just a few weeks ago its students won an international computer programming competition organized by I.B.M. — the “Battle of the Brains” — beating out Stanford and other top-flight universities.

Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google."

"Within the computer security industry and the Obama administration, analysts differ over how to interpret the finding that the intrusions appear to come from schools instead of Chinese military installations or government agencies. Some analysts have privately circulated a document asserting that the vocational school is being used as camouflage for government operations. But other computer industry executives and former government officials said it was possible that the schools were cover for a “false flag” intelligence operation being run by a third country. Some have also speculated that the hacking could be a giant example of criminal industrial espionage, aimed at stealing intellectual property from American technology firms."

[DeSwiss]

2. It would seem that from the.....

... "strained" language used in the NYT's article, that someone is tiptoeing around the idea of China's complicity. Hoping maybe to blame some amorphous "criminal organization."


- Being that I'm no diplomat, I can say without equivocation: I don't trust the Chinese government one damn wit......

[saigon68]

3. A thuggish Country ruled by Criminals

A Fascist Dictatorship (U.S. Corporate friendly) with Lip stick.

The world's largest Lamborghini Dealer is in Shanghai.

[DeSwiss]

4. Yep.

- And they don't seem that concerned about selling us poisons either. Whether we know they are poisons or not.....

Pet food
Toothpaste
Toxic toys
Exploding gas grills
Contaminated Heparin

[haele]

6. 3rd.country intelligence group, Chinese corporate/government hacking - or Russian Mobs

All three suspicions are valid suspects in this. All three situations have occurred in the past-I remember seeing China displaying a "Banana computer" at the 1986 world's fair in Vancouver BC, not too many years after the Apple computer came on the market. Looked just like a Mac...

Haele

[fasttense]

5. This is the result of dealing with a communist dictatorial regime.

If corporations want safety and security, they need to stop undermining democracies all over the world.

[David__77]

7. So what you think it's good that Reagan defeated Mondale???

You think China is the new "evil empire" replacing the Soviet Union. Were progressives like McGovern and Mondale wrong to want peaceful cooperative relations with socialist countries like the Soviet Union? Reagan was right? Is that the point?

[David__77]

8. Ooga booga! China bad! Communist dictatorship! Hide under your desk!

The McCarthyism on the "left" is amazing...