more news from Google
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article. I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :) </cynic> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html Well played, google? /kc -- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
I for one would be really happy to see them follow through with this. I was very disappointed when they agreed to censor search results, although I can understand why they did so from a business standpoint... it seemed to go against the google mantra of "do no evil"... I'm skeptical if they'll go through with it... Stefan Fouant, CISSP, JNCIE-M/T www.shortestpathfirst.net GPG Key ID: 0xB5E3803D
-----Original Message----- From: Ken Chase [mailto:math@sizone.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:24 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: more news from Google
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :) </cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc -- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:05 AM, Stefan Fouant wrote:
I for one would be really happy to see them follow through with this. I was very disappointed when they agreed to censor search results, although I can understand why they did so from a business standpoint... it seemed to go against the google mantra of "do no evil"...
I'm skeptical if they'll go through with it...
According to their spokesperson, they have already stopped censoring. That sounds a bit iffy to me. It's one thing to say "we want to stop censoring, and will pull out if you don't let us", and "we are breaking the law, nah, nah, nah". You don't like the law, don't do biz in that country. But blatantly breaking a law is bad joo-joo. -- TTFN, patrick
-----Original Message----- From: Ken Chase [mailto:math@sizone.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:24 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: more news from Google
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :) </cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc -- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
On Jan 13, 2010, at 11:14 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:05 AM, Stefan Fouant wrote:
I for one would be really happy to see them follow through with this. I was very disappointed when they agreed to censor search results, although I can understand why they did so from a business standpoint... it seemed to go against the google mantra of "do no evil"...
I'm skeptical if they'll go through with it...
According to their spokesperson, they have already stopped censoring.
That sounds a bit iffy to me. It's one thing to say "we want to stop censoring, and will pull out if you don't let us", and "we are breaking the law, nah, nah, nah".
I assume that this is coupled with the message that they will pull out of China. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8455712.stm I think it is the modern corporate equivalent of recalling your ambassador. Regards Marshall
You don't like the law, don't do biz in that country. But blatantly breaking a law is bad joo-joo.
-- TTFN, patrick
-----Original Message----- From: Ken Chase [mailto:math@sizone.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:24 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: more news from Google
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :) </cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc -- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 17:14, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net> wrote:
On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:05 AM, Stefan Fouant wrote:
I for one would be really happy to see them follow through with this. I was very disappointed when they agreed to censor search results, although I can understand why they did so from a business standpoint... it seemed to go against the google mantra of "do no evil"...
I'm skeptical if they'll go through with it...
According to their spokesperson, they have already stopped censoring.
They probably haven't yet http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&um=1&sa=1&q=tiananmen+square+protest&btnG=Google+搜索&aq=0&oq=tian&start=0 http://images.google.com/images?hl=fr&source=hp&q=tiananmen+square+protest&btnG=Recherche+d%27images&gbv=2&aq=1&oq=tian
Jérôme Fleury wrote:
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 17:14, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net> wrote:
On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:05 AM, Stefan Fouant wrote:
I for one would be really happy to see them follow through with this. I was very disappointed when they agreed to censor search results, although I can understand why they did so from a business standpoint... it seemed to go against the google mantra of "do no evil"...
I'm skeptical if they'll go through with it...
According to their spokesperson, they have already stopped censoring.
They probably haven't yet
I'm thinking they have. http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&um=1&sa=1&q=falun+gong&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq=&start=0
The Google Spokesperson I heard on the radio yesterday evening said that they had not yet stopped censoring, and declined to give a date when they would. His point was that the clock is ticking and Google can see it. On Jan 13, 2010, at 8:52 AM, Jérôme Fleury wrote:
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 17:14, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net> wrote:
On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:05 AM, Stefan Fouant wrote:
I for one would be really happy to see them follow through with this. I was very disappointed when they agreed to censor search results, although I can understand why they did so from a business standpoint... it seemed to go against the google mantra of "do no evil"...
I'm skeptical if they'll go through with it...
According to their spokesperson, they have already stopped censoring.
They probably haven't yet
You don't like the law, don't do biz in that country. But blatantly breaking a law is bad joo-joo.
OT. Please don't say "joo-joo" every time the TechCrunch folks see that they get diarrhea Cheers Jorge PS what about all the property and copyright laws being supposedly broken over there ?
On Jan 13, 2010, at 12:01 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
You don't like the law, don't do biz in that country. But blatantly breaking a law is bad joo-joo.
OT. Please don't say "joo-joo" every time the TechCrunch folks see that they get diarrhea
That is a horrible name for a product. Just saying.
You don't like the law, don't do biz in that country. But blatantly breaking a law is bad joo-joo.
Is it? http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&um=1&sa=1&q=civil+disobedience -- TTFN, patrick
-----Original Message----- From: Ken Chase [mailto:math@sizone.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:24 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: more news from Google
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :) </cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc -- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
Seems logical, after all. Considering the (bad) performances of Google search engine in China compared to Chinese competitors, and considering the fact that wouldn't change a bit in the future, closing offices wouldn't be a bad thing. That doesn't mean closing R&D centers. Ben Le 13/01/2010 06:24, Ken Chase a écrit :
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :)</cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc
On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:18 AM, Benjamin Billon wrote:
Seems logical, after all.
Considering the (bad) performances of Google search engine in China compared to Chinese competitors, and considering the fact that wouldn't change a bit in the future, closing offices wouldn't be a bad thing. That doesn't mean closing R&D centers.
Baidu has ~63%, Google has ~31%. Q4 2009 was Google's best Q in China ever. While I admit that 31% is not the market share Google usually enjoys, it certainly is not horrible. Most companies would love to have 1/3 of a market as big and growing as China. Oh, and I prefer Google over Baidu when I'm in China (which is frequently). Their results are better, and I can get some in English. :) -- TTFN, patrick
Le 13/01/2010 06:24, Ken Chase a écrit :
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :)</cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc
On 13.01.2010 06:24, Ken Chase wrote:
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :)</cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
/kc
From the article: "Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. " I have orders of magnitude fewer users than gmail does, and often look at their mailboxes (with their consent, of course), but I still couldn't tell you the political position of any of them (apart from the politicians). The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider reasonably needs. Anthony -- | Anthony Uk | dataway GmbH | Tel. +41 44 299 9988 | | uk@dataway.ch | Hohlstrasse 216 | Fax +41 44 299 9989 | | PGP key ID 10DE1D2C | CH-8021 Zuerich | http://www.dataway.ch |
On 2010-01-13, at 11:31, Anthony Uk wrote:
The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider reasonably needs.
It's arguably something that gmail users consent to when they give Google rights to index and process their mail, though. Joe
You should most likely read their terms of service and that would actually answer this instead of guessing. Also, if your reading your own employee's email, that is most likely perfectly legal. On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Joe Abley <jabley@hopcount.ca> wrote:
On 2010-01-13, at 11:31, Anthony Uk wrote:
The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider reasonably needs.
It's arguably something that gmail users consent to when they give Google rights to index and process their mail, though.
Joe
On 2010-01-13, at 14:51, Ronald Cotoni wrote:
You should most likely read their terms of service and that would actually answer this instead of guessing.
I've read the terms of service. I may be interpreting them incorrectly, sure, but I'm not guessing. If your comment was not directed at me, but was a more general recommendation for all people who might guess rather than read, then sure, I agree. Joe
It was to others :) But in the process of troubleshooting, an admin may come across something say by looking at a bounce message or other statistics such as which domains the user sends to on a regular basis. cPanel even comes with Eximstats which does some of that for you. On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Joe Abley <jabley@hopcount.ca> wrote:
On 2010-01-13, at 14:51, Ronald Cotoni wrote:
You should most likely read their terms of service and that would actually answer this instead of guessing.
I've read the terms of service. I may be interpreting them incorrectly, sure, but I'm not guessing.
If your comment was not directed at me, but was a more general recommendation for all people who might guess rather than read, then sure, I agree.
Joe
Joe Abley wrote:
On 2010-01-13, at 11:31, Anthony Uk wrote:
The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider reasonably needs.
It's arguably something that gmail users consent to when they give Google rights to index and process their mail, though.
Or... Maybe account X is attacked, and it is registered to somebody named Liu Xiaobo, and Liu Xiaobo turns out to be a prominent human rights activist. After some investigation, it turns out accounts belonging to people whose names match known human rights activists were attacked and those that don't, weren't. Sure, assuming Google is being Sinister Santa Claus (brings gifts ostensibly from the goodness of their hearts, but mysteriously knows what you want, knows when you've been sleeping, knows when you're awake, etc) through data mining makes a good story, but it isn't the obvious conclusion.
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:31:44 +0100, Anthony Uk said:
"Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. "
I have orders of magnitude fewer users than gmail does, and often look at their mailboxes (with their consent, of course), but I still couldn't tell you the political position of any of them (apart from the politicians).
If you can tell the political position of the politicians by looking at their mailboxes, you can probably tell the political position of a suspected human rights activist by looking at their mailbox. Remember - the Chinese government doesn't care about the users who's political position can't be identified. They care about the ones that *can* be identified as having an inconvenient viewpoint...
Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:31:44 +0100, Anthony Uk said:
"Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. "
I have orders of magnitude fewer users than gmail does, and often look at their mailboxes (with their consent, of course), but I still couldn't tell you the political position of any of them (apart from the politicians).
If you can tell the political position of the politicians by looking at their mailboxes, you can probably tell the political position of a suspected human rights activist by looking at their mailbox. Remember - the Chinese government doesn't care about the users who's political position can't be identified. They care about the ones that *can* be identified as having an inconvenient viewpoint...
you can probably also simply compare the usernames with the search term blacklist that the government provides you...
In a message written on Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 05:31:44PM +0100, Anthony Uk wrote:
I have orders of magnitude fewer users than gmail does, and often look at their mailboxes (with their consent, of course), but I still couldn't tell you the political position of any of them (apart from the politicians).
It's not clear to me you have to read any e-mail to figure out that "help_us_free_tibet@gmail.com" might be someone who's taking a political position. A search company may also, say, look for e-mail addresses listed on the web sites that must be censored, and when it's the same list being hacked, draw a conclusion. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
-----Original Message----- From: Leo Bicknell [mailto:bicknell@ufp.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:49 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: more news from Google
It's not clear to me you have to read any e-mail to figure out that "help_us_free_tibet@gmail.com" might be someone who's taking a political position. A search company may also, say, look for e-mail addresses listed on the web sites that must be censored, and when it's the same list being hacked, draw a conclusion.
It's also possible that far less questionable means are being utilized. Perhaps there are a sufficient number of pro-free-speech'ers at Google.cn (which is presumably largely composed of Chinese nationals) that are privy to such information. It only takes one guy going "hey! I know some of these email addresses!"... Nathan
On Jan 13, 2010, at 8:31 AM, Anthony Uk wrote:
The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider reasonably needs.
I'm not Chinese, but putting myself in their position... I would be surprised if they were trying to determine anyone's political positions. Google's observation that the targeted parties were dissidents suggests that they are known to be dissidents without looking at their gmail content. If I were of the specified mindset and were looking at their mail, I think I might be mapping dissident networks to identify potential dissidents I was unaware of and looking to see if they mentioned any specific plans or pointed to specific content.
i am confused here, which is not at all unusual. did the chinese get any data which google does not give to american LEAs in answer to an administrative request, i.e. not even a court order? randy
On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 10:00:38AM +0900, Randy Bush wrote:
i am confused here, which is not at all unusual. did the chinese get any data which google does not give to american LEAs in answer to an administrative request, i.e. not even a court order?
You mean why didn't they just ask for it instead of going through all this trouble? -- - Adam -- ** I design intricate-yet-elegant processes for user and machine problems. ** Custom development project broken? Contact me, I can help. ** Some of what I do: http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/70505118/aboutworkstuff [ http://workstuff.tumblr.com ] ........... Technology Blog [ http://www.aquick.org/blog ] ............ Personal Blog [ http://www.adamfields.com/resume.html ].. Experience [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fields ] ... Photos [ http://www.twitter.com/fields ].......... Twitter [ http://www.morningside-analytics.com ] .. Latest Venture [ http://www.confabb.com ] ................ Founder
-----Original Message----- From: Ken Chase [mailto:math@sizone.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:24 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: more news from Google
I must say I'll have to take a step back from my previous position/postings having read this article.
I just can't figure out their /ANGLE/. :) </cynic>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Well played, google?
Interesting radio piece re:Google in China this evening on NPR's radio program "All Things Considered". http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122540813 Stefan Fouant, CISSP, JNCIE-M/T www.shortestpathfirst.net GPG Key ID: 0xB5E3803D
participants (22)
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Adam Fields -
Anthony Uk -
Benjamin Billon -
Dave Israel -
Florian Weimer -
Fred Baker -
Joe Abley -
Joel Esler -
Joel Jaeggli -
Jorge Amodio -
Jérôme Fleury -
Ken Chase -
Leo Bicknell -
Marshall Eubanks -
Michael Smith -
Nathan Eisenberg -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Paul Timmins -
Randy Bush -
Ronald Cotoni -
Stefan Fouant -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu