Google vs China thread

[gambit]

Google.cn can go back to USA

I object to internet censorship.

But I strongly agree with Chinese govenment that they block any intentionally anti-China propaganda website : Tibet independence, East Turkistan terrorism, Taiwan independence, FLG, also Western-style Pornographic or Gambling sites.

You do not see the contradiction in that, do you?

 

[booo]

Evidence Found for Chinese Attack on Google

By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: January 19, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — An American computer security researcher has found what he says he believes is strong evidence of the digital fingerprints of Chinese authors in the software programs used in attacks against Google.

The search engine giant announced last Tuesday that it had experienced a series of Internet break-ins it believed were of Chinese origin. The company’s executives did not, however, detail the evidence leading them to the conclusion that the Chinese government was behind the attacks, beyond stating that e-mail accounts of several Chinese human rights activists had been compromised.

In the week since the announcement, several computer security companies have made claims supporting Google’s suspicions, but the evidence has remained circumstantial.

Now, by analyzing the software used in the break-ins against Google and dozens of other companies, Joe Stewart, a malware specialist with SecureWorks, a computer security company based in Atlanta, said he determined the main program used in the attack contained a module based on an unusual algorithm from a Chinese technical paper that has been published exclusively on Chinese-language Web sites.

The malware at the heart of Google attack is described by researchers as a “Trojan horse” that is intended to open a back door to a computer on the Internet. The program, called Hydraq by the computer security research community and intended to subvert computers that run different versions of the Windows operating system, was first noticed earlier this year.

Mr. Stewart describes himself as a “reverse engineer,” one of a relatively small group of software engineers who disassemble malware codes in an effort to better understand the nature of the attacks that have been introduced by the computer underground, and now possibly by governments as well.

“If you look at the code in a debugger you see patterns that jump out at you,” he said. In this case he discovered software code that represented an unusual algorithm, or formula, intended for error-checking transmitted data.

He acknowledged that he could not completely rule out the possibility that the clue had been placed in the program intentionally by programmers from another government intent on framing the Chinese, but he said that was unlikely. “Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the best one.”

 

[Communist]

Just because the US can do <something> it does not mean the US must do it.

Better say, US cannot do everything.

Hope you understand the connotation implied here.

Perhaps if you actually spend sometime in the military you would understand?

Understand what? How to hate an alien civilization just because its values do not match my own values, just because the people have a culture far different from that of mine, just because the people do not belong to the race I belong?

This planet is not anyone's personal property. Everyone has the right to live in his own way without harming others.

Let me tell you a simple thing, "live and let others live". Yes some people may consider themselves living Rambos and custodians of civilizations, but you know what happens to them finally.

USA has a free society and gun culture and that free society's culture brings results this way:

Several feared dead as lone gunman strikes central Virginia town - US - World - The Times of India

By your argument, may be you could explain why the PRC have not invaded Taiwan yet.

Why does China need to invade China? You were talking about Republic of China, no?

This section reads like it came from a 12yr old.

Just because it sounded harsh, no?

Anyway, thanks for the compliment. Being a 12 yr old innocent boy is better than a 30/40/50/60 yr old racist hater.

It is sad that you cannot see the irony of quoting Durant, particularly the 'invader' bit. So explain to the readership as to WHO and [/b]WHAT[/b] are responsible for China's gaps in economic, technology, human rights and overall prestige?

Colonizers and colonization are responsible. Hope you know who were the colonizers and what is colonization if you have passed your high school exams. Hope your federal syllabus have taught you the correct history.

Dr Zinn was in military also. He fought some real battles also.

Who suppressed the Chinese people's creativity and entrepreneurship?

What is creativity? Does creativity mean only the making of lethal weapons so that one can kill civilians and dominate others?

Weak regulation of the U.S. civilian gun market and the gun industry&#8217;s focus on increasingly lethal military-style firearms have combined to fuel the drug war in Mexico and violence in the United States, Violence Policy Center (VPC) Senior Policy Analyst Tom Diaz told a Congressional subcommittee today.

U.S. Gun Industry Feeds Gun Violence on U.S./Mexico Border, Violence Policy Center Analyst Tells Congress Docuticker

Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What is entrepreneurship? Does entrepreneurship mean the making of 3x movies and creating huge amount of benefit?

Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the U.S. It&#8217;s big business. The pornography industry has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined.

Top 10 Internet Pornography Statistics - TopTenREVIEWS

I can cite a number of examples to make you embarrassed if you possess minimum sensitivity. But let it go, I do not want flame bait.

Look at Japan and Taiwan and be embarrassed for China. For half a century, China lags behind an enemy and a 'renegade' province despite living on a land wealthy with natural resources.

Neither Japan nor Taiwan (ROC) experienced colonization.

If credit should be given where it is due, so does blame and the blame for China's relative backwardness should be heaped on the communists' heads. So who was the invader responsible?

What is backwardness according to your logic?

If your version of backwardness is expressed by not wearing bikinis, practice live-together or illegitimate sexual relationships, possessing a gun, visiting night clubs and getting drunk, using some drugs for hallucination, doing abortions, divorcing and affecting the new born children, eating at McDonald's, then we agree we are backward and we feel proud of being backward.

Who gave you the right to determine who is backward and who is forward according to your own perception of life?

 

[Communist]

You are not worth my time, loser, since even your own government called you stupid...

Google, do not take Chinese netizens hostage - People's Daily Online

Got that? The PRC government that you support is telling, not just US, but THE WORLD, that the Chinese people is incapable of processing information as well as the white man. All Asians, including the Pakistanis on this forum, should thank the PRC government for giving the Asians this backhanded slap.

Thanks for helping me making a good reply.

Google, do not take Chinese netizens hostage
22:11, January 19, 2010

Google, do not take Chinese netizens hostage - People's Daily Online

It is ordinary for a commercial company to enter and exit the Chinese market, but this is not the case for Google. Firstly, it gave the Chinese government an ultimatum, requiring the latter to make a concession, which is obviously political in nature. In addition, Google's move won the collective support from the U.S. government, congress and western media agencies, so this event has completely been politicized. Such politicization was not provoked by China, but imposed by the U.S. and the west onto China.

As to how the event has gone so far, the Google event looks more like another "Akmal Shaikh" event, and perhaps even worse. Of course, the result of the event must be that Chinese government will never violate the rules of the market and laws for the sake of a commercial company, let alone give up its political bottom line and diplomatic principles because of a note from the U.S. government.

It is a lie to claim that the Internet is an absolutely free space without regulations. The truth is that it is the extension of the real world. Therefore, implementing monitoring according to a country's national context is what any government has to do. The Chinese society has generally less information bearing capacity than developed countries such as the U.S., which is an objective reality that no one can deny. Chinese intellectuals living in China should show understanding to the motherland's weakness. China will certainly and gradually change this reality, but the starting point of the change should be in the interests of the entire Chinese society instead of for the convenience or desire of a small group of people. In fact, both western politicians and media leaders understand this; those who do not understand this are either unwilling to understand China due to cultural arrogance or pretend not to know it. In fact, world countries including the U.S. do not permit the existence of a laisser-faire Internet world either. To combat terrorism after the "9/11" terrorist attack, the U.S. has permitted police to search civilian emails and even monitor their communications without permission. Western countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Germany and Sweden have also passed similar bills.

In recent years, China has sincerely opened up to the outside world. However, China follows its own course while learning from the west and its reluctance to copy the Internet control and supervision mode of the U.S. does not contradict its adherence to the "4 Cardinal Principles" released in the early stage of the opening up and reform. At that time, even in China, some people raised doubts about the Chinese government's choice. However, when looking back, we now can find that the government's choice is correct. In contrast, Gorbachev was once widely praised by the west and his political reform even won much admiration in China. But, it was Gorbachev that finally ruined the Soviet Union. Therefore, China must not follow the western world's practice on crucial issues such as Internet control and supervision. Of course, China is progressing and its Internet industry should advance accordingly. However, China must have its own plan on how to regulate and deregulate the Internet and should not and will not follow orders from Google's CEO and the U.S. Department of State.

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt stated that he "loves China and the Chinese people." The author of this article holds that such love should not be empty talk. Google should show its sincerity by taking practical actions and should first abide by China's laws and not seek any privilege in China, stop launching surprise attacks against China if it really "loves China." At the same time, Google should take the Chinese people's feelings into consideration and stop using Chinese customers as hostage to confront the Chinese government.

Several days before Google declared that it planned to withdraw from China, the U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton held a small evening dinner party. The guests she invited were just the leaders of the powerful information enterprises such as the Microsoft, Twitter and Google. The two affairs were so close that people would unavoidably think they were connected. After this political affliction, Google has already made itself in an awkward situation. If it withdraws from China, it will lose a market consisting of 360 million netizens; if it does not, it will be hijacked by the U.S. government.

By now, a year and a half have passed since the financial crisis, which badly damaged the reputation of the U.S., broke out. From a series of movements that the U.S. government made recently, we can see that the U.S. is trying to recover and maintain its own outlook of values. We do not hope that giant multinational enterprises such as Google will become pure political tools for the U.S. to export its own concepts of values. A lot of Chinese people like Google, but they do not want to become tools being used by Google.

The author is Zhang Jingwei, a sholar in Jiangsu Province. The article is translated by People's Daily Online.

 

[Sino-PakFriendship]

You do not see the contradiction in that, do you?

Western Whites start protest on torch relay and force China negotiate with Dalai Lama.

Why Western White States not to negotiate with Osama bin Laden?


Because You Western Whites think that you are always true and China are always wrong!

So why China accept Google about Anti-China propaganda?

 

[gambit]

Better say, US cannot do everything.

Hope you understand the connotation implied here.

And let us hope that you can remain focus on the discussion.

Here is your question...

What I mean is that the Internet is US created and we control the root servers, that mean we can deny Internet access at the national level.

You have not answered me why USA is not doing anything if it really controls major web servers according to your claim. I knew you would not be able to answer. But I did not know you would make such reply.

The answer is at the present time there is no need for US to do anything as drastic as severing the PRC's link to the Internet, as in just because the US can do <something> it does not mean we must do it. Clear? Your tap-dancing is not winning any prize.

Understand what? How to hate an alien civilization just because its values do not match my own values, just because the people have a culture far different from that of mine, just because the people do not belong to the race I belong?

This planet is not anyone's personal property. Everyone has the right to live in his own way without harming others.

Let me tell you a simple thing, "live and let others live". Yes some people may consider themselves living Rambos and custodians of civilizations, but you know what happens to them finally.

USA has a free society and gun culture and that free society's culture brings results this way:

Several feared dead as lone gunman strikes central Virginia town - US - World - The Times of India




Why does China need to invade China? You were talking about Republic of China, no?




Just because it sounded harsh, no?

Anyway, thanks for the compliment. Being a 12 yr old innocent boy is better than a 30/40/50/60 yr old racist hater.




Colonizers and colonization are responsible. Hope you know who were the colonizers and what is colonization if you have passed your high school exams. Hope your federal syllabus have taught you the correct history.

Arn3lF5XSUg[/media] - A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn

Xwq_jiTjAuY[/media] - A People's History (The 20th Century) - Howard Zinn [1/53]

Dr Zinn was in military also. He fought some real battles also.




What is creativity? Does creativity mean only the making of lethal weapons so that one can kill civilians and dominate others?

Weak regulation of the U.S. civilian gun market and the gun industry’s focus on increasingly lethal military-style firearms have combined to fuel the drug war in Mexico and violence in the United States, Violence Policy Center (VPC) Senior Policy Analyst Tom Diaz told a Congressional subcommittee today.

U.S. Gun Industry Feeds Gun Violence on U.S./Mexico Border, Violence Policy Center Analyst Tells Congress Docuticker

Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What is entrepreneurship? Does entrepreneurship mean the making of 3x movies and creating huge amount of benefit?

Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the U.S. It’s big business. The pornography industry has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined.

Top 10 Internet Pornography Statistics - TopTenREVIEWS

I can cite a number of examples to make you embarrassed if you possess minimum sensitivity. But let it go, I do not want flame bait.



Neither Japan nor Taiwan (ROC) experienced colonization.




What is backwardness according to your logic?

If your version of backwardness is expressed by not wearing bikinis, practice live-together or illegitimate sexual relationships, possessing a gun, visiting night clubs and getting drunk, using some drugs for hallucination, doing abortions, divorcing and affecting the new born children, eating at McDonald's, then we agree we are backward and we feel proud of being backward.

Who gave you the right to determine who is backward and who is forward according to your own perception of life?

There is nothing here that address Durant's comment about China...

“No victory of arms, or tyranny of alien finance, can long suppress a nation so rich in resources and vitality. The invader will lose funds or patience before the loins of China will lose virility; within a century China will have absorbed and civilized her conquerors, and will have learned all the technique of what transiently bears the name of modern industry; roads and communications will give her unity, economy and thrift will give her funds, and a strong government will give her order and peace.”

Nor does it answer the question of why is mainland China are behind a once former war enemy -- Japan -- and a 'renegade' province -- Taiwan. The delicious irony here is that a communist is quoting Durant while oblivious to the fact that it was communism that is the cause of China's overall laggard compared to those who are living in natural resource scarce lands. Mainland China has no need for 'invader' when Chinese communists will do the destruction just fine. Your red herrings does indicate the debating ability of a 12yr old.

 

[Communist]

The answer is at the present time there is no need for US to do anything as drastic as severing the PRC's link to the Internet, as in just because the US can do <something> it does not mean we must do it. Clear? Your tap-dancing is not winning any prize.

I repeat, USA cannot do everything.

There is nothing here that address Durant's comment about China...
Nor does it answer the question of why is mainland China are behind a once former war enemy -- Japan -- and a 'renegade' province -- Taiwan.

Because Japan unlike China never faced colonialism.

The delicious irony here is that a communist is quoting Durant while oblivious to the fact that it was communism that is the cause of China's overall laggard compared to those who are living in natural resource scarce lands.

Western American colonialism is the cause of China's overall laggard compared to those who are living in natural resource scarce lands. Though China is gradually overcoming the shock.

Mainland China has no need for 'invader' when Chinese communists will do the destruction just fine. Your red herrings does indicate the debating ability of a 12yr old.

Yes please apply for the vacant post of a History professor in your Harvard University. See how your own country's scholars treat you. Best of luck.

 

[booo]

Google Hopes to Retain Business Unit in China

By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: January 19, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO &#8212; Few people say they think Google&#8217;s Chinese-language search engine will survive the company&#8217;s confrontation with China.
But as Google prepares for talks with the Chinese government over its decision to stop cooperating with censorship laws there, the rest of Google&#8217;s business and operations in China hangs in the balance.

Google has said it is prepared to shut down its local Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, unless it is allowed to run it uncensored. The company has also indicated that it would like to retain much of its operations there, including its growing ranks of Chinese engineers, its sales force and its toehold in the country&#8217;s mobile phone business.

If the company can reach an accommodation on these issues with Chinese authorities, the reward could be significant. Google would be able to claim a principled stand on free speech and human rights while suffering only marginal damage to its business in China.

Experts on China say that is not likely to be easy. The company&#8217;s public repudiation of censorship in China has put the authorities there in a position where a forceful rebuke of Google may be all but inevitable.

&#8220;The Chinese government is in a very difficult position,&#8221; said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Qiang said that it would be hard for the Chinese government to be conciliatory without losing face. &#8220;They have never responded to a public challenge like this by not doing something,&#8221; he said.

What is more, there are indications that Google&#8217;s stand against Chinese censorship is already affecting some of the company&#8217;s business there. On Tuesday, Google said it would postpone the release in China of two mobile phones that are based on its Android operating system. The phones, made by Motorola and Samsung, and expected to run on China Unicom&#8217;s network, include many of Google&#8217;s mobile applications. Google asked its partners to postpone their release until the fate of its services in the country was settled.

Google made the announcement last week after it discovered that hacking attacks traced to mainland China had been directed at it and more than 30 other companies based in the United States. Motorola was one of the companies attacked, according to a person with knowledge of the attacks. Motorola declined to confirm an attack. A spokeswoman, Jennifer Erickson, said: &#8220;Motorola is committed to offering the most innovative mobile products and experiences in China, including Android-powered devices.&#8221;

No service is more threatened by Google&#8217;s vow to end its cooperation with Chinese censors than Google.cn. Chinese government officials have already appeared to foreclose the idea of an uncensored Internet search engine, saying simply that all Internet companies are welcome to operate in China as long as they follow the law.

But people with knowledge of Google&#8217;s strategy say that in talks to be held in the days and weeks ahead, company executives will make the case to the Chinese government that Google should be allowed to keep many of its other China operations intact. The business logic behind that drive is simple.

In most countries, Google draws the majority of its revenue from ads that appear on its search engine, but the No. 1 source of revenue in China comes from ads that Chinese companies place on Google&#8217;s sites in the United States. A person knowledgeable about Google&#8217;s business in China said ads that run on a network of Chinese Web sites are the company&#8217;s second-largest source of revenue in the country. Google can retain both of those if it is allowed to keep a sales force and advertising network there.

&#8220;Theoretically, they could keep a decent portion of the revenue,&#8221; said Brian Pitz, a UBS analyst.

Google will not disclose its revenue in China, but people with knowledge of the company&#8217;s finances said that quarterly sales were in the vicinity of $150 million, a small fraction of its nearly $6 billion global revenue in the most recent quarter.

The fate of Google&#8217;s research and development operations in China may be as important to the company as that revenue. Google is starved for engineering talent, and it has opened offices around the world in large part to tap local pools of skilled programmers. If forced to shut down entirely, Google may try to offer jobs in the United States to some of its Chinese engineers, but many more may lose their jobs, or worse for Google, end up working for rivals like Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine, or Microsoft.

Last week, David Drummond, Google&#8217;s chief legal counsel, indicated the company&#8217;s desire to keep its work force in China, noting that even before it introduced its local search engine in 2006, Google had a research and development operation there.

&#8220;We could revert back to when we had employees, but no site,&#8221; Mr. Drummond said.

Some experts warned Google not to expect much.

&#8220;It&#8217;s going to be a tricky minuet,&#8221; said Tom Doctoroff, chief executive for Greater China for JWT, the worldwide advertising agency. Mr. Doctoroff said Google&#8217;s decision to air its grievances in the open was &#8220;inelegant.&#8221;

&#8220;With any other company this would be the end,&#8221; he said. But because so much of China&#8217;s educated class values Google, the Chinese government may &#8220;be willing to find a face-saving solution,&#8221; he added.

David Barboza contributed reporting from Shanghai, and Edward Wong from Beijing.

 

[gambit]

I repeat, USA cannot do everything.

And did I said we could? Let us show the readership how utterly incompetent you are on this...

What I mean is that the Internet is US created and we control the root servers, that mean we can deny Internet access at the national level.

You have not answered me why USA is not doing anything if it really controls major web servers according to your claim. I knew you would not be able to answer. But I did not know you would make such reply.

And I have answered you...That just because I can do <something> it does not mean that I must do it. You ask that question with the implication that since China is not severed from the Internet that mean the US does not have the necessary controls mechanisms in place. You are wrong.

U.S. retains control of Internet root servers - Wikinews, the free news source

The United States decided on Friday to indefinitely retain control the 13 root servers that direct all internet traffic to the right locations. This decision drew concern from foreign officials who would rather see an international group such as ICANN oversee the control of the servers.

DNS Root Name Servers Explained For Non-Experts - ISOC Member Briefing #19

Root servers are operated by twelve organisations often referred to as the "root server operators". They are

A - VeriSign Global Registry Services

B - Information Sciences Institute

C - Cogent Communications

D - University of Maryland

E - NASA Ames Research Center

F - Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.

G - U.S. DOD Network Information Center

H - U.S. Army Research Lab

I - Autonomica/NORDUnet

J - VeriSign Global Registry Services

K - RIPE NCC

L - ICANN

M - WIDE Project

Even if China does managed to reroute traffic to any of the physical servers that is not under direct US controls, and there are a few of them, an extreme punitive measure the US can do is to sever the accommodating server from the Internet as well, leaving China and that ally in the dark. Who do you think is going to take that chance just to be in China's good graces?

Because Japan unlike China never faced colonialism.

Western American colonialism is the cause of China's overall laggard compared to those who are living in natural resource scarce lands. Though China is gradually overcoming the shock.

Yes please apply for the vacant post of a History professor in your Harvard University. See how your own country's scholars treat you. Best of luck.

The US never had any colonial interests in mainland China. Google is your friend. Wait a sec...You do not use Google...Only PRC government approved Baidu. No wonder you got your facts wrong.

The communists took control of mainland China after WW II. China, Japan and Taiwan were relatively the same level of development when all factors are considered. Japan's war devastation made the islands not much different that mainland China's agragrian conditions. In short, once a government has control of the land for decades, the European, not American, colonialism excuse no longer apply. Taiwan and Japan leaped ahead of mainland China in development. The communists are to blame. Grow up, young man.

 

[feifanke]

why don't google leave from china. i have heard that they want to do it.

TO my chinese ,it's good moral——“&#35328;&#24517;&#20449;&#65292;&#34892;&#24517;&#26524;”. it's clear google be lacking in moral

 

[gambit]

Who gave you the right to determine who is backward and who is forward according to your own perception of life?

I gave myself that right. Anyone who is capable of assimilating facts, form opinions and exercise critical thinking automatically gave himself or herself the right to make judgments. Results matter. Your question is like asking people what give them the right to say a 1970 VW Beetle is an inferior automobile to the 2010 Ghost.

 

[xuxu1457]

And did I said we could? Let us show the readership how utterly incompetent you are on this...


And I have answered you...That just because I can do <something> it does not mean that I must do it. You ask that question with the implication that since China is not severed from the Internet that mean the US does not have the necessary controls mechanisms in place. You are wrong.

U.S. retains control of Internet root servers - Wikinews, the free news source


DNS Root Name Servers Explained For Non-Experts - ISOC Member Briefing #19


Even if China does managed to reroute traffic to any of the physical servers that is not under direct US controls, and there are a few of them, an extreme punitive measure the US can do is to sever the accommodating server from the Internet as well, leaving China and that ally in the dark. Who do you think is going to take that chance just to be in China's good graces?




The US never had any colonial interests in mainland China. Google is your friend. Wait a sec...You do not use Google...Only PRC government approved Baidu. No wonder you got your facts wrong.

The communists took control of mainland China after WW II. China, Japan and Taiwan were relatively the same level of development when all factors are considered. Japan's war devastation made the islands not much different that mainland China's agragrian conditions. In short, once a government has control of the land for decades, the European, not American, colonialism excuse no longer apply. Taiwan and Japan leaped ahead of mainland China in development. The communists are to blame. Grow up, young man.

Chinese know little about US,but American know less about outer.
Something you talked about China just like a fiction,
"The US never had any colonial interests in mainland China. ":No Chinese think US want to colonize any country.
"Only PRC government approved Baidu. "I don't know where you got the source,is it in China or any other nation?Here are tens searchers,now there are four search engines in my net-browser :Baidu,Google,Qihu,Youdao,and if you want you can add SOSO(tencent),Biying(Microsoft),Yahoo,360 and so on by only a button.That is why when you said "Only PRC government approved Baidu. " every Chinese was laughing at your opinionation.

 

[AnGrz_Z_K_Jailer]

Chinese search engine Baidu sues US company over hacking attack

China's largest search engine, Baidu.com, is seeking damages against its US-based service provider after hackers from the "Iranian Cyber Army" hijacked the company's homepage in China last week.

By Peter Foster in Beijing
Published: 7:00AM GMT 20 Jan 2010

The move in a New York law court comes a week after Google threatened to pull out of China if the Chinese government did not allow it to operate its local site free of the country's onerous censorship laws.

Baidu.com, which accounts for two-thirds of China's internet searches, said it had filed the claim against Register.com, accusing the US company of "gross negligence" in failing to prevent the attacks which lasted for four hours on January 12.

Twitter, the popular microblogging site which is banned in China, was subjected to a similar attack a few weeks earlier.

Following the attack on Baidu, Chinese media carried embarrassing snapshots of the company's home page showing a message "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army" against a dark background and the Iranian flag.

The regime in Tehran, which is currently under pressure from pro-democracy forces using social networking sites like Twitter, is a key Middle Eastern ally and oil supplier to China.

"Today Baidu filed a lawsuit against its domain name registration service provider Register.com, Inc. in a US court in New York, seeking damages over the incident of Baidu's service interruption last week," the Chinese firm said in a statement.

Baidu said the software behind its domain name had been "unlawfully and maliciously altered" as a result of the "gross negligence" of Register.com.

This led to "users from many places around the world being unable to access the Baidu website for a number of hours and causing serious damages to Baidu".

Register.com is a leading domain registration service that manages more than 2.5 million domain names, according to the company's website.

The Chinese legal action comes as the row between Google and the Chinese government continues to remain unresolved, with analysts awaiting the outcome of talks between the two parties in the coming days and weeks.

The fate of the world's largest search engine in China appeared to remain in limbo, with Chinese employees of the company still reporting to work as they wait for the authorities in Beijing and executives from their parent-company in San Francisco to decide how to proceed.

A posting on the Chinese company's official blog by two Google executives said that Google China was continuing to provide products and services 'as usual' to its users and partners.

However the uncertainty surrounding the company's status in China appeared to be responsible for a decision to postpone the launch of two smartphone mobile handsets in China powered by Google's Android operating system.

The future of Google in China remains the subject of intense speculation, with some industry analysts arguing that the company might close its search engine but maintain parts of its business and advertising services that do not clash with the censorship regime.

However given Google's extremely public rebuke of the Chinese government's censorship practices, which have tightened considerably in the last year, many China specialists think it unlikely that a compromise can be reached.

Source : Chinese search engine Baidu sues US company over hacking attack - Telegraph

 

[gpit]

What&#8217;s Google&#8217;s game plan?
By Jeff Pan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-01-15 17:40

Three days ago, Google&#8217;s Chief Legal Officer posted a blog titled &#8220;A new approach to China,&#8221; threatening to shut down Google.cn and the company&#8217;s China offices, if its demands were not met. Two reasons were cited for this shocking decision: first, Google was under &#8220;a highly sophisticated and targeted attack &#8230; from China;&#8221; second, Google wants to uphold human rights and freedom of speech.

Wow, I haven&#8217;t seen such a lofty company for a while, and one can&#8217;t help but admire Google for choosing the noble ideological values over commercial interests in a hopelessly materialistic world. But a second thought to these two reasons baffled my mind.

First, the blog post said Google was under attack from China, so the company needs to quit the Chinese market. Well, I have two questions about this statement. Is shutting down Google.cn going to stop the Chinese hackers from attacking Google? Are the Chinese hackers particularly powerful that a company made of the smartest minds on earth would have to evade them altogether, even at the cost of losing the world&#8217;s biggest number of Internet users?

My guess to both questions is no. Then what&#8217;s the logic behind this reason? Read on the Google post, you will find a strong implication that the attack was an organized crime effort against not only Google, but a number of other large companies. So who was the bad guy behind this shocking conspiracy? Google story did not explicitly offer an answer. The readers were left to figure out the answer themselves, and if you watch Hollywood movies, it&#8217;s not hard to find out: the government is behind all these.

Second, the blog post said the company cannot take the Chinese regulations any more, and wants to hold its own ethical ground. But why did Google enter the Chinese market in the first place if it were really an ideological company as it claimed? Integrity entails consistency; I see neither in Google&#8217;s act.

On the other hand, it is true that the company encountered many obstacles in China in the past year. Most recently, Google was found infringing 80,000 Chinese books, and was forced to apologize. Could this pullout drama just be another way to increase its bargaining chips for more business? Or am I just too mean and narrow-minded, and Google might really just be such a GREAT company?

Let me be nerdy and dive into some game theory for a better understanding.

Suppose there is a 20&#37; chance that Google is purely ideology-motivated, and an 80% chance that it&#8217;s business-oriented, and let&#8217;s call the two scenarios &#8220;Lofty&#8221; and &#8220;Dirty.&#8221; Google moves first by choosing between &#8220;Pullout threat&#8221; and &#8220;Business as usual.&#8221; After Google&#8217;s decision, the Chinese government then chooses either to &#8220;Accommodate&#8221; or &#8220;Fight.&#8221; Suppose Google&#8217;s payoffs depend on its type, it derives an incremental payoff of 1 when it chooses to threat and 0 when it chooses to do nothing, if it is lofty; and an incremental payoff of 0 when it chooses to threat and 1 when it chooses to do nothing, if it is dirty. Additionally, Google derives an incremental payoff of 2, regardless of its type, if the Chinese government chooses to Accommodate. Suppose the Chinese government only wants to fight if Google is dirty. The government gets a payoff of 1 if it fights the dirty type and gives in to the lofty type, and 0 otherwise. Then we have the following chart.

If these values hold true, the government would accommodate if Google threats to pull out, because the expected payoff to fight (0.2*1+0.8*0=0.2) is smaller than the payoff to fight (0.2*0+0.8*1=0.8). Should Google choose to do nothing, the government would choose to fight.

This was probably what Google had in mind before making this move, but there were too many assumptions behind this kind of wishful thinking. Most significantly, the estimations about the government payoffs can be very inaccurate. So you bet, the company is doing everything it can to decrease the government payoffs for the fight option.

Simply put, Google believes it can force the Chinese government to meet its market demands if it threats to pull out. To ensure this to happen, the company employs a wide array of tactics to make it painful for the Chinese government to fight. Here are some of the things they did:

Conspiracy theory. There is one thing that can cause a lot of damage to China: a reputation that China is a hostile and dangerous business environment. Google fancies a stereotypical Hollywood story to prove this point, but a rather boring story indeed.

The human rights card. There are two favorite weapons for the western media and politicians to use to attack China: human rights and freedom of speech. Not surprisingly, Google manages to incorporate both in its statement and has so far successfully garnered a lot of support. Read this Op-Ed from New York Times titled &#8220;Google takes a stand.&#8221; But you don&#8217;t have to click the link to know what picture is drawn: upright small guy against big evil monster.

&#8220;We are not alone.&#8221; Google also mentioned in its statement a lot of other large companies were in the same boat with them, and wanted to send a signal to the Chinese government: you might face more enemies than you thought if you choose to fight. Of course, Google didn&#8217;t forget to mention that it is &#8220;also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.&#8221;

Anyways, it might be still true that Google is doing all these simply because its China operations are against the company values, but I am not convinced. To avoid cyber attack? Come on, I just don&#8217;t think Google is that fragile. To protect human rights and freedom of speech in China? Really, then how is pulling out helping China to improve its freedom of speech?

In 2006, Google&#8217;s CEO, Eric Schmidt, was quoted saying, &#8220;We will take a long-term view to win in China. The Chinese have 5,000 years of history. Google has 5,000 years of patience in China.&#8221; Well, the patience has lasted for three years so far. It&#8217;s going to be interesting to see what will happen in the next 4,997 years.

Jeff Pan is an MBA student at Duke University in the US. You can reach him via jeff.pan@fuqua.duke.edu

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-01/15/content_9329308.htm

 

[gambit]

From WSJ Technology dept.

By LORETTA CHAO And AARON BACK

BEIJING—If Google Inc. closes its Chinese search engine, the biggest beneficiary is likely to be Baidu Inc., the search leader here.

But even if Google retreats, the prospect for the Chinese company making substantial gains still would face obstacles, from difficulty developing innovative products to facing new competition by local rivals.

Baidu is already China's most popular Web site by traffic, and it dominates the country's search market, with nearly 60% of total industry revenue.

Google's share has grown in recent years but still gets only about a third of total revenue. Baidu's share would certainly rise if Google shuts down its Chinese site, as analysts say is likely in the wake of the U.S. company's announcement last week that it was attacked by a hacking operation originating from China and that it will stop obeying government requirements to censor its search results.

Baidu's dominance in a fast-growing market already has made it a darling of global investors. It is one of the most-traded stocks on the Nasdaq Stock Market by volume, ahead of much larger tech giants like eBay Inc. and Dell Inc. The day after Google's Jan. 12 announcement, Baidu shares rose 14%, giving it a market value of $11.3 billion, more than 70 times its estimated 2009 earnings. Google's value is 25 times earnings, according to Thomson Reuters.

Baidu has built its position mainly by adapting existing products to the needs of Chinese users, rather than through the sort of inventiveness for which Google is famous, such as the Google Earth satellite-mapping application. Chinese-born Chief Executive Robin Li, a Silicon Valley engineer in the 1990s who founded Baidu in 2000, has dismissed what he calls "innovation for innovation's sake." The company, whose name was inspired by an 800-year-old Chinese poem about the search for a retreating beauty, attributes most of its success to knowing the Chinese user better than foreign rivals. The company didn't say how it might respond to a possible Google withdrawal.

Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Li said the company will continue focusing on its "core strengths in Chinese search technology." Baidu, she said in an interviews, has become a leader in China because it focuses on "the needs of Chinese search users and providing innovative products tailored for our market," such as online forums.

Thomson Reuters estimates that Baidu's earnings, which more than tripled in two years to 1.05 billion yuan ($153.8 million) in 2008, climbed 39% last year.

With about 7,000 employees, Baidu also is on a hiring binge. Its new seven-story headquarters in Beijing can hold more than 4,700 employees but only has 3,100 now. Baidu executives say they plan to fill the space "very quickly" with new hires. The company has other offices throughout China, including a research-and-development center in Shanghai and a sales office in Guangzhou. Baidu started a Japanese site in 2007 and plans more international expansion.

In addition to its search engine, Baidu's offerings include a popular online forum called Baidu Post Bar, a question-and-answer platform called Baidu Knows, an instant-messaging service and a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia. Analysts say one of its most popular products is a search service dedicated to music. Record labels have sued Baidu in China, claiming it links to sites with unlicensed songs, but have been unsuccessful in forcing the company to discontinue the practice. Baidu says it shouldn't be held responsible for such links and is in talks with record labels to work out a partnership.

When Baidu unveiled its long-term strategy, it wasn't well-received. Mr. Li last year hailed the concept of "box computing"—in which a Baidu search box could be used for everything from starting other software to doing calculations to finding a girlfriend—would increasingly "be the backbone of future Baidu initiatives." The idea was panned in the Chinese state-run media as vague and largely derivative of Google concepts. "More marketing than breakthrough," a People's Daily headline said.

Baidu also has experienced snags with a major overhaul of its online-advertising system, which it introduced last year following criticism by users and state media that paid ads were too difficult to distinguish from search results. Baidu says the system eventually will let it make more money off searches, but difficulty persuading some clients to migrate to the new system have slowed revenue growth.

In 2008, rumors spread that Baidu accepted payment to remove negative stories about a tainted-milk scandal that affected tens of thousands of children in China. The company denied the allegations, which weren't proved.

While Baidu contends that its products are better-tailored to its home market than Google's, it has a tougher time making that claim against Chinese rivals. Tencent Holdings Ltd., whose successful instant-messaging and videogame services have made it China's biggest Internet company by market value, is testing its own search engine.

Baidu also has butted heads with Alibaba Group, a Chinese online-commerce company that is much bigger than Baidu by revenue.

Baidu made waves when it announced in 2007 that it would launch an e-commerce platform called Youa, to compete with Alibaba's Taobao. Mr. Li, Baidu's CEO, said search engines were the foundation of online shopping and estimated that about half of Chinese online shoppers would conduct a general Web search before looking for goods on a Web site like Taobao.

Taobao responded by blocking Baidu from searching goods on its site, and Taobao continues to grow at a remarkable pace. As of 2009, Youa had less than 1% of the customer-to-customer e-commerce market by gross value, according to estimates from iResearch, compared with 82% for Taobao.

Baidu is not "an unbeatable foe," says David Wolf, chief executive of Wolf Group Asia, a Beijing-based marketing-strategy firm. "There are other Chinese organizations that…could go after them."

Robin Li is astute enough to tailored his product to fit local needs, namely the Chinese people. But short term tactics are not the same as long term investments and dismissing innovations as merely for innovation's sake is being shortsighted. In the history of technology, nothing has been discarded as useless. Dismissal of a product is always the result of the product not sufficiently useful for short term advantages. The original idea was to have a robust form of electronic communication, in hardware and software, that no matter what may happen to any part of the structure, communication remain available. ARPANET was initially dismissed as having no 'civilian' utility, but we know it better today as 'The Internet'.

The point here is that as civilization, and therefore people, matures, the product that was dismissed as 'worthless' will have its elements incorporated into new products that will be useful, for short term tactical advantages and long term investments. The organization that has the highest amount of innovations in its portfolio, the ones that was scorned by others, will come out ahead and stronger than its competition. This is why in the recent IT recession, same as past IT recessions, smart companies remain active in R/D to amass as much innovations as possible so that when consumers do feel the need to improve their lives through technological means, be it for entertainment or medicines or for businesses, smart companies will be able to quickly incorporate their new ideas into new products and dominate the market, whatever niche they might be in at that time. Innovations are never worthless, if they are, mergers would not be so contentious at times over intellectual properties and their results.