Google recently announced that a highly sophisticated cyber attack on its corporate infrastructure originated from China, and they allude to it possibly being state sponsored. Google accuses the Chinese Government of hacking into Google’s servers to access information on Chinese human rights activists. Google’s company motto is “Don’t Be Evil” and though I have compared the company recently to The Blob, I commend them for taking a very strong stance in response to this recent attack. Google may leave China in response to this blatant breach of trust but before they do the floodgates may open. This is a quote from the official Google blog as written by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer:

“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.”

I’m shocked that China (if there was in fact a government sponsored operation) would be so brazenly aggressive in breaking the trust that Google has made concessions to forge.  Now, Google is free to exorcise some nagging guilt about their criticized relationship with China should any exist. With the launch of the country’s newest technology stock exchange ChiNext the Chinese are feeling confident about their tech prowess and may very well feel they can run their own search engine just fine on their own. Indeed Baidu, the Chinese search engine based in Shanghai would benefit from Google’s exit from the Chinese market. Baidu, ironically has also been hacked by a group called the Iranian Cyber-Army who I’m sure are also being hacked by someone else right now as I type. And you’re probably being hacked right now too.

It’s a shame how this is all going down because it also potentially affects how the internet will be “governed” or “managed” for everyone outside of China too. The proposed Cybersecurity Bill, S 773 championed by American Senator Jay Rockefeller, D.-W.Va will likely feed off of this recent debacle. The bill is feared by some to be restrictive and protectionist. It potentially marks the end of the open-era of the internet and the beginning of the bureaucratized online era.

Just the way the Chinese government wants it.

Why the photo of the “sexy-Ninja” in this article you ask? Well- because that’s something the Chinese are now able to see if Google lifts their censorship and I KNOW they’ll be Googling for it. How could they not? You did, that’s how you got here right?

Related posts:

1. Google social media make Murdoch angry, Murdoch smash Google!
2. Canada trails Greenland in internet penetration, Google looks to capitalize
3. The Great Firewall of China extends a little further

Tags: Baidu, ChiNext, criticized, Cybersecurity Bill S 773, Google accuses the Chinese Government, Google may leave China, Iranian Cyber Army, state sponsored, The Blob

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 11:38 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.