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Attacks on GoogleFiled Under: Everything Else

So many bloggers have talked about this, and now that I’ve researched it, so shall I!

Okay so run down just in case you’ve missed all this, which would be bloody amazing because the story is everywhere, but here it is anyway. In mid-December, Google noticed that someone was trying to attack it. No news there, that happens all the time, however this was a very skilled and very targeted attack on their corporate site, and email accounts of many humanitarian workers in China. Google traced the attacks and found that they also targeted companies in the media, finance, and defence areas.

Some news stories have even suggested that the attacks have hit companies that currently hold defence contracts within the US. Google hasn’t come out and said that the Chinese government is behind the attacks, but the the level of sophistication, and Google’s reaction, people have pretty much assumed that the attacks are backed by the government.

These attacks come on the back of Google deciding that they would no longer censor their search results as China demanded they would have to do to be able to operate within the country. This was a very controversial decision on Google’s part, and I think many people are very happy to see it overturned. However there are now fears that, with Google pulling out of the country, the censorship of information for the Chinese people will be even greater… and that’s pretty crap.

Google isn’t the only company to be trying China at the moment, and it’s interesting to see these pushes on China’s demands all occurring at the same time. Companies that sell raw iron ore – used to make steel – usually sell around half their yearly product to China, and last year China used this buying strength to set the iron ore price for the year at a less than great rate to iron ore sellers. This year, iron ore sellers – Vale of Brazil, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton – skipped China and went straight to Japan, completely leaving China out of price negotiations for the year. That’s massive considering the proportion of sales that go to China.

In another aggravating move to ol’ China, the US has just signed a deal to sell over 200 missiles to Taiwan, something China expressly ‘asked’ the US not to do, and now they are rather persnickety over it. I have to say, I really do enjoy seeing countries say no to China. I don’t approve of their censorship, and other practices going on throughout the government, so I like to see the playing field evened out a little.

Oh, by the way, China does have it’s own set of hackers, who are often very patriotic – which leads many to believe that they are in fact sanctioned by the government – and lately these patriotic hackers have set themselves the task of defacing Iranian websites because Iranian hackers attacked one of China’s biggest search engines. If you’ve found this whole thing interesting at all, then please read this news story, because it brings up so many breaches of security perpetrated by China that I can’t mention them all here!

Okay now for a knitting pattern. How about a blanket? This pretty Sutter’s Mill Throw Blanket, to be precise. It’s chilly in my part of the world, and I’d like to have this blanket on my lap right now!