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Marc Ambinder: How The Hackers Took Google: A Theory
From the Atlantic Magazine:
Fred Chang has a theory about how hackers affiliated with the Chinese government hacked into Google and at least two dozen other major American companies. Chang is a professor of computer science at the University of Texas — so we should listen to him. But he is also the former director of research for the National Security Agency, so he has a pretty good idea of what hackers can do — and whether these things can be picked up by the government or industry.
Chang says he has no inside or special knowledge, but here is his theory: the hack was much more of a sophisticated intelligence operation than many believed. The first step was espionage and data collection.
The second step was the hack itself. Chang believes that the Chinese hackers figured out the identities of the system administrators for various computer networks. Then, the hackers figured out, using publicly availably Facebook data, the social networks that these systems administrators were part of.
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- February 8, 2010 5:56 PM
Still Counting? 27 More Websites Opened in Xinjiang
According to the Far West China blog, 27 more websites have been made accessible to netizens in Xinjiang, bringing the total number to 31:
You might be getting tired of counting new sites being opened in Xinjiang as “news”. I know I am. If, however, you’re waiting for a single day when Xinjiang will suddenly “turn on the internet”, I have some bad news for you.
I believe China is strategically opening small parts of the internet and making headline news out of each event knowing full-well that the international media’s attention span won’t keep up. We’re already getting bored. 27 more sites are opened in Xinjiang today, 50 more next week…who cares?
Meanwhile the flow of information is being strictly controlled and authorities still take the opportunity to declare a state of freedom on the internet.
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- February 7, 2010 10:29 PM
China Shuts Down Largest Hacker Training Website
Three members of China’s largest hacker training website have been arrested and the site shut down, according to Reuters:
The “Black Hawk Safety Net” website taught hacking techniques and provided malicious software downloads for its 12,000 members in exchange for a fee, the Wuhan Evening News newspaper reported this weekend, citing police in Huanggang, just east of Wuhan.
Hacking from China has received international attention since Google Inc threatened to quit China last month after a serious hacking attempt originating from China, resulting in the theft of its intellectual property.
China has denied involvement in the hacking episode and said it does not condone hacking.
The website was shut in late November and three of its members arrested on suspicion of criminal activity, the newspaper reported, without saying why the news was only released now.
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- February 7, 2010 9:13 PM
China Jails Man 13 Years for Running Porn Web Site
From AP:
The court in the Guangdong province city of Jiangmen handed down the sentence to Huang Yizhong and fined him 100,000 yuan ($14,600), the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Huang pleaded guilty to charges of copying and spreading pornographic material on the Web site, which he ran since 2005 using a rented U.S. server, Xinhua said. Police caught him last July and his trial started Jan. 6.
It said Huang downloaded more than 1,000 pornographic movies and edited them into video clips for his site. With more than 4,000 paying members, he received profits of nearly $500,000, Xinhua said.
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- February 7, 2010 12:03 AM
China is Aiming at America’s Soft Underbelly: the Internet
The Christian Science Monitor interviews Mike McConnell, former director of National Intelligence, the authority over all US intelligence agencies, and of the NSA, which has recently teamed up with Google to probe cyber attacks:
Nathan Gardels: Defense analysts say that 90 percent of the probes and scans of American defense systems as well as commercial computer networks come from China. Is China the chief culprit?
Mike McConnell: I don’t know if it is 90 percent. Probably the best in the world in the cyberrealm are the United States, the Russians, the British, the Israelis, and the French. The next tier is the Chinese, but they are determined to be the best.
We are an open society. A virtual sieve for cyberpenetration…
The Chinese are exploiting our systems for information advantage – looking for the characteristics of a weapons system by a defense contractor or academic research on plasma physics, for example – not in order to destroy data and do damage. But, for now, I believe they are deterred from destroying data both by the need to export to the US and by the need to keep stable currency and stable global markets.
But what happens if we have a war? A capability for information exploitation could quickly be used for information attack to destroy systems on which the US depends. Every nation with advanced technology is exploring options to establish policy and rules for how to use this new capability to wage war.
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- February 5, 2010 3:13 PM
The ‘State Network Information Center’ Wants to Spy on you. Here’s How to Stop Them…
From the LostLaowai blog:
This is a bit sinister: the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has been dropping digital certificates into the computers of everyone in China, which could potentially allow them to snoop on your normally secure ‘https’ web-surfing, such as your online banking and email.
CNNIC’s digital certificate, which is probably in your computer right now, has not been proved to be maliciously spying, but it’s a matter of trust. Do you really trust CNNIC, the overlords of the ‘Great Firewall’, to not be potentially peeking into your email, Facebook, Paypal account or online bank? Nope, thought not.
These digital certificates are not viruses or malware; they’re genuine tools that sites use to encrypt and verify information, and are issued by third-party Certificate Authorities (CA). For this CNNIC certificate to be on your computer, it has taken numerous levels of consent: by the web browser makers (Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and more obscure ones, such as Opera) and by the CA ‘Entrust’, who will have evaluated, accepted and issued CNNIC’s digital certificate.
So, what’s the drama, you ask… Well, in devious hands, these important data snippets can be configured to pry, spy and snoop on your web traffic and private data. A benign digital certificate could turn malicious if remotely reconfigured, so as to tap into a certain users encrypted web data. In one other scenario, CNNIC could possibly use this tool in conjunction with the Great Firewall to tunnel into your encrypted web sessions. And, remember, CNNIC has a history of putting malware on people’s machines, hence all the alarm bells ringing over this tiny, new development.
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- February 4, 2010 9:59 PM
Google Facing Many Risks in China Standoff
Reuters reports on the challenges facing Google since the company announced it would no longer operate a censored search engine in China:
Despite early reports suggesting Google had lifted filters on certain search results, the company insists it has made zero changes to its Chinese search engine and that it remains in dialogue with Beijing. Otherwise, executives have mostly been tight-lipped about the entire affair.
That guarded, restrained approach reflects the thorny legal issues surrounding the situation and the high stakes involved in its standoff with China, the world’s No. 3 economy and largest Internet market by users.
Many analysts believe the Chinese government would have no qualms shutting down an uncensored search engine. But experts on Chinese law warn that Google employees in China could also face prosecution for breaking the law.
China’s detention of four Rio Tinto employees including Australian Stern Hu in July on accusations of illegally obtaining commercial secrets amid contentious iron ore contract negotiations has underscored the risk when business matters cross into politically sensitive areas.
“If they have a lot of personnel in China and they suddenly decide to change what they’re doing in a way that was not permitted by the Chinese government, then that could lead to problems,” said Donald Clarke, a professor of Chinese law at George Washington University Law School, noting Google staff could be at risk of everything from arrest to harassment.
See also “Google Asks Spy Agency for Help With Inquiry Into Cyberattacks” from the New York Times.
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- February 4, 2010 9:48 PM
Beijing Bones up its Cyber-Warfare Capacity
For the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief, Willy Lam writes about the Chinese government’s recent efforts to increase and expand their cyber warfare capabilities:
While matters relating to internal security and intelligence in China are shrouded in secrecy, the broad contours of Beijing’s game plan to augment electronic warfare capacity are clear. In early 2009, party-and-state authorities significantly boosted budgets for recruiting the best Chinese graduates in areas including computers, engineering, mathematics and foreign languages. Research units under the MSS and MPS frequently put advertisements in official and private websites seeking software engineers and specialists in IT security. For instance, the First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, which has a staff of more than 1,200, recently launched a large-scale hiring campaign. Moreover, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States and other countries have, over the past year, taken advantage of the recession in the West to recruit hundreds of Chinese graduates from the best computer science departments in Western universities. These IT talents are frequently offered internationally competitive salaries in addition to bright promotion prospects (Asiasentinel.com, January 22; Apple Daily, January 29).
There is also evidence that agencies under public security and military intelligence are recruiting hackers as software engineers and Net-related security experts. This is despite the MIIT’s statement late last month that China will actively participate in global efforts to combat threats to cyber-security. The ministry spokesman indicated that “China is willing to cooperate with other countries in cracking down on hackers.” Last year, Beijing revised a law that makes hacking a crime, with punishments of up to seven years in jail. Yet, advertisements for accomplished and “reliable” hackers can often be found in China’s recruitment websites. Moreover, there are anecdotes galore within China’s IT community about “patriotic hackers” being hired by military or state security departments (New York Times, February 3; China News Service, January 25; Cnjz.cn [Beijing], November 1, 2009; Guofang.info [Beijing], September 17, 2009). According to a recent report commissioned by the Washington-based U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on China’s digital warfare capacity, Chinese military and state security units have been employing from “elements of China’s hacker community.” The October 2009 report cited a number of “cases of apparent collaboration between more elite individual hackers and the PRC’s civilian security services” [1].
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- February 4, 2010 5:08 PM
Hush Money Journalism
Caixin, edited by Hu Shuli, reports on media corruption and the recent mining disaster cover-up in Weixian, Hebei:
Later last year, a dozen journalists were discovered to have taken hush money totaling 2.6 million yuan, according to a Hebei Provincial government report released January 9. Local authorities in Weixian, Hebei Province bribed journalists, including four from national media, to silence a mining accident that occurred July 14, 2008. Crowds of journalists lined up for hush money to be handed out after a local coal mine accident in Shanxi Province Nov. 3, 2008.
As these cases show, the lure of money continues to dull the consciences of a few journalists. But as for whether only the journalists should be responsible, Professor Zhan Jiang from the Beijing Foreign Studies University said that the brunt of criticism ought to be directed at local government officials.
Officials in areas with intense mining, such as Hebei and Shanxi, are frequently found attempting to conceal accidents from the public. Professor Zhan said local authorities in mining areas have come to rely on concealing work safety accidents through cutting information off from the public and using public funds for bribes. Zhan says this systemic corruption creates “professional blackmail journalists.”
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- February 4, 2010 4:28 PM
Blogger Describes Xinjiang as an ‘Internet Prison’
Josh of the Far West China blog has written a short piece for the BBC on the current situation with Internet access in Xinjiang, where he lives:
Finally state media hailed the return of Sohu and Sina, two of China’s most popular news portals, but the sites have been completely censored – they are unrecognisable save the logo.
If you access these sites from Xinjiang, there are no adverts, you can’t log on, email or access the forums. The search function is also unavailable, as is the possibility of changing language. The whole layout looks different – we’re behind a firewall within China’s great firewall.
People doing business at an international or even national level have been severely inconvenienced. But most people have resigned themselves to this situation.
People hold out some hope that someday everything will return to the way it was, but the government has given us no timetable.
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- February 4, 2010 1:12 PM
Han Han’s Speech At Xiamen University: “The So-called Grand Cultural Nation”
Author, race-car driver and blogger Han Han’s most recent speech at Xiamen University, translated on the EastSouthWestNorth blog:
This is my second time in Xiamen. The weather here is great. No wonder people like to go outside and stroll. Hmmm … I just heard Teacher Deng spoke about certain issues on nationalism. I was reminded of a couple of sayings which I came across them previously. They are other people’s words, not mine. The first saying is, “Nationalism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” The second saying is, “True patriotism is to protect this country so that it will not suffer any harm.”
For today’s talk, I have brought along a written speech in order to constrain myself. Mainly, I don’t want you to suffer any harm because I may stray all over the place. Let me begin.
Dear leaders, dear teachers, dear students, how are you doing?
Do you know why China cannot become a grand cultural nation? It is because most of the time when we speak, we say “Dear leaders” first and those leaders are uncultured. Not only that, for they are also afraid of culture, they censor culture and they control culture. So how can such a nation become a grand cultural nation? Dear leaders, what do you say?
Actually, China has tremendous potential of becoming a grand cultural nation. Let me tell you a story. I am the chief editor of a magazine which has yet to publish. The Constitution states that every citizen has the freedom to publish, but the law also says that the leaders has the freedom not to let you publish. This magazine has run into some problems during the review process. There is a cartoon drawing. In it, there is a man without clothes — of course, this is unacceptable because the law says that we cannot exhibit the private parts in a publicly available magazine. I agree with that and I don’t have a problem with it. Therefore, I intentionally created an extra-large magazine logo that was placed over the illegal spot of the cartoon. But unexpectedly, the publisher and the censor told us that this was unacceptable too — when you cover up the middle part of a person, you are referring to the “Party Central” (note: “party” is a homonym for “block/shield” and “central” is “middle”). My reaction was like yours — I was awed and shocked. I thought to myself, “Buddy, it would be so wonderful if you could put your awe-inspiring imagination into literary creation instead of literary censorship!”

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- February 4, 2010 12:58 PM
Jiao Xiang (焦翔): “Google, Don’t Become a Tool of Hegemony”
China Media Project reports that comments showing support for Google in China have all but disappeared from the media and online forums in China, and been replaced with commentaries such as this one from People’s Daily:
It is only normal for a government to exercise control over the Internet, and it is the same in any country in the world, in such areas as fighting pornography or committing online crimes, for example. At the same time, various countries similarly demand that the content of Websites abides by national law and preserves national security.
In this regard, Google itself serves as an example, obscuring various satellite images of the United States. Generally speaking, monitoring, filtering and deletion are the basic methods by which countries control the Internet. This is especially true in Western countries, which while they yammer on and on about “freedom of expression” and “Internet freedom” in other countries, strictly control material that concerns their vital national interests. As, for example, when Google filters out posts that contain racial slurs or attacks on the United States.
China’s Internet monitoring is entirely in accord with the law, and both Internet companies and Internet users are afforded a large degree of freedom. There are now 200 million blogs in China, making it the biggest blogging nation on earth, and every day hundreds of millions go online to say what they wish.
As an online network, our People’s Daily Online is extremely free. We have already operated the “Strong Nation Forum” for a number of years. There is one principal that governs our work on the Internet, and that is respect for national laws and the preservation of healthy Internet development.
So long as it does not violate the law, anything can be raised. Speech is completely free here at People’s Daily Online.
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- February 4, 2010 12:57 PM
Charles Zhang (张朝阳)：Without Reform There is No Way Out
Charles Zhang (Zhang Chaoyang 张朝阳) is the Founder, Chairman and current CEO of Sohu, China’s second largest Internet portal and the first Chinese-language search engine. Widely recognized as one of China’s Internet pioneers, Zhang has been on the Forbes China Rich List and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Cyber Elite. Born in Xi’an in 1964, Zhang received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before launching the Internet company ITC, which later developed Sohu.
Zhang recently delivered the keynote speech at a media forum in Beijing organized by Sohu. From Reuters:
China will never have its voice heard on the international stage unless the government loosens its tight grip over the media and film industry, the CEO of the country’s No. 2 Internet portal said Wednesday.
Charles Zhang, the often outspoken chief executive of Sohu.com Inc, told a forum in Beijing that plans to create global Chinese media giants were doomed to fail if the government did not relax controls.
CDT has translated portions of his talk below:
I was a student and scholar of physics before age 30. Until now, I have been to many countries, and have been part of many things. I have many thoughts on a lot of subjects. So please let me spend some time to talk about this today.
In Year 2049, many of us who are sitting here today will still be alive, and we will have many children and grandchildren. By that time, will all Chinese be able to live happily and with dignity, and have a lot of face in front of Americans? And will China be respected by the world? This has everything to do with now, with every person. Between now and the happy life in 2049 there are still a lot of barriers; whether we can arrive at the glorious shore critically depends on the choices we make today being wise or stupid. By that time, if the rise of China and wealth becomes a delusion, our descendants will point their fingers at us and say: What has your generation done? How can you be this stupid?
Chinese are the most hardworking people in the world. Confucian culture requires us to be practical, striving forward in life, always moving upstream. With a little opportunity we can make wealth; with few resources we can flourish. Chinese government officials are the most hardworking officials in the world. Chinese society has a much lower tolerance for corruption than Russia, Brazil and India. The thirty years of market reform have given hardworking Chinese opportunities; workers in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta have been working on production lines day and night with low salaries, and our Confucian leaders in every city and region also work day and night, under the competitive pressure of neighboring cities or regions and the pressure of being promoted, leading their subordinates, running on the road of accumulating wealth. The hardworking culture of the Chinese and the marketization of the manufacturing industry created the miracle of “Made in China.” The mid and lower stream of the world’s consumer product chain are almost monopolized by cheap Chinese products. This is the reason for our economic miracle over the last 30 years.
The accomplishment of the last 30 years is tremendous, and we are therefore overwhelmed by the celebratory feeling of this success, we even feel high. Now we cannot stop talking about the rise of the great nation, excitedly (such as the Global Times) collecting any piece of praise from westerners, whom we still worship as our superiors, as if the Middle Kingdom has returned to the ancient glorious order as the center of the world, worshipped by the surrounding countries. This is an illusion! Westerners still do not think too much of us!
In fact, we have only participated in the preliminary round of the economic games. Now we have entered the final game. Our opponent is the most powerful, most advanced country – the United States. If we still keep the current status, then the intellectual thesis is: hardworking Confucian spirit + incomplete market economy vs. individualism + fair and complete market economy. I think the answer is certain and depressing: We have no way to defeat America!
The problem comes from the incomplete market economy. Quality and excellence come from full competition. Innovation comes from fair competition. And the incomplete market economy is interrupting the competition every minute.
… In the field of media, newspapers and television stations within the Chinese system lack meaningful competition, and therefore have no credibility and respect. When the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times point to something, the whole world pays attention, and believes them. Because there is no respectable media organization, China’s global communication power is very weak. The national media team organized by the government to promote China’s brand globally is doomed to fail and has no competitive strength, because they are not a product of market competition.
You may ask, what should we do?
The answer is obvious. Continue the marketization reforms with determination. Without reform there is no way out! Without full and fair market competition, there will be no quality, no excellence, no employment opportunities, no stability, and no real rise of China.
How do we do this practically? The problem is complicated, but the fundamental point is to limit the power of the government and to thoroughly pursue fairness. Only by realizing maximum fairness, can those talented individuals and organizations emerge, and the society can be filled with energy and creativity. Otherwise what we have developed will not be a full market economy, but the power-elite capitalism. The government should drop those actions which take profits from the society, but spend its main energy to protect fair competition.
　　
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- February 4, 2010 12:38 AM
China Censors Oscar Nominations
The Chinese government is censoring news about the upcoming Oscars after China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province, an HBO documentary about the children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, was nominated (Watch the movie below). From The Telegraph:
The documentary follows several groups of parents as their grief turned into protest.
“It was tofu construction,” said one interviewee, while another held up a brick to show how easy it was to brush off the “mortar” on one side.
The 40-minute film shows how the parents are stonewalled and ignored by Communist party officials.
It was blocked from being aired in China, and the words “unnatural disaster” have been censored from the Chinese internet.
When the film garnered its Oscar nomination, Chinese media outlets either removed the film from their reports, or omitted the entire category.
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province:

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- February 4, 2010 12:29 AM
Chinese Twitterers are Well Off, Educated… and Mostly Male
Shanghaiist translates the results of a survey by blogger kenengba of Twitter users in China, who he found to be predominately male, well-educated, and between the ages of 19-29. He also compiled responses of why users go to the trouble of using VPNs to access the banned site to read and write 140 word messages. The top answers were:
1. To know the truth and open the horizon
2. To record and share my life
3. To get information and show my concern about democracy
4. Because Fanfou has been shut down
5. To get all the gossips in order to clear information for my colleagues who live in Mars
6. Follow the planet that I like and later fall in love with everything in Twitter
7. The exchange in Twitter is very interesting
8. No censor here and we can preserve the primary mode of communication here
9. To kill time
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- February 2, 2010 8:58 PM