The China and Google hacking saga, something that can be viewed as something of a proxy disagreement between the US and China, continues to boil.
China is promising to handle any hackers with swift, hard justice.
On the surface that sounds quite impressive. However, the context of the quote takes away enough of its bite to make us wonder if it is all bark. From Miao Wei, China’s vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, on state television:
“If Google has had evidence that the attacks came from China, the Chinese government will welcome them to provide the information and will severely punish the offenders according to the law. We never support hacking attacks because China also falls victim to hacking attacks”
Not to be antagonistic, but that is just not good enough. When the story broke, the only thought on everyone’s mind was whether the attacks had come from the Chinese government. The way that Google worded its announcement made it seem like it was possible.
Later information came out from Google that the hackers came from two Chinese schools. One of the schools has strong ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese military. This ties the Chinese government to the attacks, at least indirectly.
China states that Google has not yet filed a formal complaint, and therefore the country has yet to take any punitive actions. The schools are denying any involvement or wrongdoing. China is saying things in public that make it seem like they are willing to take some responsibility for the future of the situation, but will they? Even more so, by claiming to be anti-hacking, they are trying to sound like they identify with Google. If they can sell that in the public eye, any move by Google against the Chinese market will paint Google the antagonist, not the victim.
Read their pronouncement again: “If Google has…… welcome them to provide the information…” How proactive does that sound? Google, send them a document with everything you know. If they need more information, Google it and email it to Mr. Wei, he seems to not know what has been going on.
I think the issue is just a bit more then what evidence Google has, but also what human rights will be violated towards those who will be punished.
The big worry with Google filing a formal complaint is that China's idea of swift justice is generally either putting them to death or tossing them in a jail to rot their lives away from the public eye. Google may not be up for signing the death penalties of some sacrificial student who dropped the virus o' doom on them as a proxy for the government – knowing the government will NEVER own up to their own sponsorship of it.
word is some cadre executions in China amount to putting the condemned in a remote villa with the demand that a painfully low profile to be kept lest a real execution be required.
Surely google should punish them
After the latest events in Greek economy, makes me wonder, who is the “evil” after all.
Agree with Lee: Google you wanna complain? Then live with some blood on your hands! Sure they'll catch someone. Whether he did it, they don't care. If the hack was a gov't assignment, they don't care. If they need to whack the head master of a school who didn't control and spy his students fiercely enough, they don't care.
They'll squeeze a nine for you and man you'll look bad. Or you shut up, Google. If you dance with the devil expect to get burnt, and you ain't done dancing till he says so.
Them Chinese gov't dudes are mean but they sure are smart. Probably Sun Tzu and Machiavelli are obligatory reading when getting higher ranks in the CCP.
Maybe it's just an excercise from Google to see how a dicator should behave: after all the Googleplex knows more about you and me than the CCP knows about its citizens and the inevitable corruption that I predicted 2 years ago, is starting to show, little by little.