Google's Chinese Employees May Have Had Hand in Attacks
Google's Chinese Employees May Have Had Hand in Attacks
Posted 01/18/2010 at 6:33pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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Rumors are swirling that indicate the recent attacks on Google’s servers may have been carried out with the help of some China-based Google employees. According to sources, a number of employees at the China offices were placed on mandatory leave, and others were transferred. Google even went so far as to briefly cut the workers off from the network to make sure it was secure.
Google is currently remaining tight lipped about this bit of the puzzle. This is strange considering how forthcoming they were with other details. The attack took advantage of a known security hole in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. This has led France and Germany to recommend their citizens stop using the browser for the time being.
Could this be the real reason Google seems so ready to pull out of China? If they suspect their own employees were convinced to assist in the attack, they may feel the situation is already out of control. Are we getting the real story here? Let us know in the comments.
Image via The Ecomomist
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urdead4g
January 19, 2010 at 4:41am
According to sources, the maximum pc staff has worked "very hard" at getting this twitter crap on every article so it will not be removed anytime soon regardless if everyone doesn't like it.
Those damn sources..
Tekzel
January 19, 2010 at 12:54pm
I think twitter is one of the dumbest things since the pet rock, but damn, why are you guys so vigorously opposed to that twitter box being there? It doesn't bother me, I just scroll down a little bit further and get to the comments. I just don't understand all the uproar.
MeTo
January 19, 2010 at 6:39am
We can always boycott. I use to like MAXIMUMPC "BUT" i don't "NEED" it. Hey Tweet this!
win7fanboi
January 19, 2010 at 11:20am
I use Firefox and have noscript on. If you don't allow dailyradar to run js you don't see any twitter stuff.
Danthrax66
January 18, 2010 at 9:55pm
The people behind the attacks were obviously mad about twitter being under every article on maximumpc. Seriously get rid of this twitterbs.
drslap
January 18, 2010 at 9:45pm
I would want to launch an attack too if image search returned nothing for "boobs".
quantumnerd
January 18, 2010 at 9:14pm
Everah-wun bak to duh base, pardner
I'm definitely not going to sap your servers.
Edit: reply fail. Replied to the earliest first-level comment.
=[My name? Quantumnerd. If you mock it you don't get it.]=
stardust
January 18, 2010 at 9:04pm
Google should have known most of it's Chinese employee's would be drwing two checks . One from
Google and the other from Chinese State Security Service :D
Joe The Plummer
January 18, 2010 at 7:35pm
I don't think the United States is taking these attacks seriously. China and Russia continue to poke and prod our systems looking to steal anything they can get their hands on and our government basically just bends over and says please don't do that but we won't stop you, even though you're looking for holes to exploit in infrastructure and defense.
It's time that these attacks are treated as such. ATTACKS. In my mind this is an act of war. The Chinese are brilliant. They own our currency, thanks to places like Wal-Mart they've trained people to demand to pay as little as nothing for products and China is only happy to supply the low quality crap that gets sold there and other places and we allow our companies to do business there, meanwhile the Chinese government dictates how those companies operate regardless if it goes against our laws and values. They force our companies to share their technology with state sponsored companies thereby giving them our technology for free.
Enough is enough already. Every American business needs to cease doing business in China until these things stop.
My friends every large empire falls. Rome didn't fall in a day. It took several centuries. Unfortunately thanks to technology it won't take the US as long.
win7fanboi
January 19, 2010 at 11:22am
I concur... I mean is it that surprising? They constantly try to find holes in dod systems for gathering information.
jwalch.hawk
January 18, 2010 at 6:50pm
"Are we getting the real story here?"
Hell no.
Do any of us know what the real story is? Equally unlikely.
Very strange situation, though.
gscindian
January 19, 2010 at 9:28am
I don't think we'll know the true details, but I do know that China is after Western technology and will take it by any means necessary. Google is still trying to be political about it, but reading between the lines, there was not just one person attacking the system, nor were there multiple people attacking their system randomly. One operation was launched against Google to get into their technical libraries, by many at once. There I said it! Google basically walked into a back alley and got jumped by all sides and they took Googles lunch money!
At the end of the day... One shall stand, One shall fall
nerdman978
January 18, 2010 at 8:04pm
Unfortunately in the real world pyros have to deal with friendly fire
nekollx
January 19, 2010 at 10:19am
turn about is fair play
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