[ISN] Google threatens to leave China after massive cyberattacks

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:53:13 -0600 (CST)
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9144139/Google_threatens_to_leave_China_after_massive_cyberattacks?taxonomyId=17

By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld
January 12, 2010 

Google today said that a "highly sophisticated and targeted" attack 
against its network last month originated in China, and tried to access 
the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

In a blog post Tuesday, David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, 
said that attacks have forced the company to "review the feasibility of 
our business operations in China." Google, continued Drummond, is "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."

The end result of those discussions, said Drummond, may be that Google 
shuts down its search engine and close its offices in the People's 
Republic of China.

"This is a bold and a very difficult move on [Google's] part," said 
Leslie Harris, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & 
Technology (CDT), a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties group. "But 
with the revelations that there have been major cyber attacks aimed at 
human rights activists, both in China and in the West, it's hard to see 
how Google could have remained silent."

[...]


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Received on Tue Jan 12 2010 - 22:53:13 PST

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