(Via Macworld.)

Last Updated: Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | 9:02 AM ET

The Associated Press
In China, attempts to access wikileaks.org and cablegate.wikileaks.org were met with a notice saying the connection had been reset. That’s the standard response when a website is being blocked by Chinese authorities who exert rigid controls over internet content.In China, attempts to access wikileaks.org and cablegate.wikileaks.org were met with a notice saying the connection had been reset. That’s the standard response when a website is being blocked by Chinese authorities who exert rigid controls over internet content. (Associated Press)

Links to the WikiLeaks website were blocked within China on Wednesday amid potentially embarrassing claims made in leaked U.S. diplomatic cables posted to the site.

Attempts to access wikileaks.org and cablegate.wikileaks.org were met with a notice saying the connection had been reset. That’s the standard response when a website is being blocked by Chinese authorities who exert rigid controls over internet content.

It wasn’t clear when the blocks were imposed, although a vast swath of the internet is inaccessible behind China’s firewall, including social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Human rights and political dissent-themed sites are also routinely banned, although technologically savvy users can easily jump the so-called ‘Great Firewall’ with proxy servers or other alternatives.

WikiLeaks may have been singled out because of some of the assertions made in the leaked cables, including some sent from the U.S. Embassies in Seoul and Beijing, focusing on China’s ally North Korea.

Those included suggestions that North Korea’s communist regime would likely collapse within three years of the death of ruler Kim Jong Il, and that Chinese leaders were prepared to accept South Korea’s eventual rule over the entire Korean peninsula.

In one, a Chinese diplomat is quoted describing North Korea as a ’spoiled child’ for attempting to win U.S. attention with a provocative missile test.

The leaks also claimed that China’s Politburo directed a cyber intrusion into Google’s computer systems, and expressed concern over attempts by Iranian front companies to obtain Chinese nuclear technology.
Foreign Ministry not commenting

China’s government has taken a low-key approach to the leaks, with the Foreign Ministry saying it would not comment on specific assertions in the cables.

‘China takes note of relevant reports. We hope the U.S. side will properly handle the relevant issue. As for the content of the documents, we do not comment on that,’ ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Tuesday.

The Global Times, a provocative tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily, labelled the disclosure a ‘nefarious slander against China’ on Wednesday.

It also questioned the U.S. government’s perceived inability to block the posting of the leaks, saying it raised questions as to whether it had reached some form of tacit understanding with WikiLeaks.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University, said Beijing shared Washington’s concern about the release of sensitive diplomatic communications. But he said the WikiLeaks blocking was motivated more by the need to stifle further rumour mongering, rather than suppressing specific revelations.

‘The website is blocked because the information is both unprovable and sensitive,’ Shi said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that WikiLeaks acted illegally in posting the documents. Officials around the world have said the disclosure jeopardizes national security, diplomats, intelligence assets and relationships between foreign governments.

The massive leaks were ‘embarrassing’ and ‘awkward,’ but the consequences for American foreign policy should be limited, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

Clinton ordered surveillance of UN leadership

A Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing that China’s Politburo ‘directed’ last December’s hack on Google’s internal systems, according to the confidential US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks and various news organizations on Sunday.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post, 20.07.2010

*China said Tuesday that Google’s license to operate in the country had been renewed after the company pledged to obey censorship laws.

The remarks were Beijing’s first comments about Google since the search giant shocked the Internet world in January with the announcement that it would end four years of self-censorship and pull out of the country entirely after alleged intrusions into its network by hackers.

In March, Google raised the stakes in its censorship row with China by shutting down its search service in the mainland and redirecting searches to Hong Kong, which is semi-autonomous and enjoys greater freedom of speech.

Zhang Feng, an official with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at a news conference on Tuesday that Google had promised to ‘obey Chinese law’ and avoid linking to material deemed a threat to national security or social stability.

Zhang also talked about Google’s planned ‘rectification and reform,’ referring to the U.S. search company’s decision to stop switching users automatically to its Hong Kong search site. Instead, users arrive at a screen that allows them to click to get to Google Hong Kong. ‘The rectification and reform in the annual application basically conforms to regulation,’ Zhang said.

A Google spokeswoman would not comment directly about Zhang’s remarks but reiterated that ‘the products we are keeping on Google.cn (Music, Translate, Product Search) do not require Google to censor.’ She said Web search is being offered from Google.com.hk without censorship.

‘There is no censorship being done by Google on either domain,’ she said.”

(Via .)

Page last updated at 08:10 GMT, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 09:10 UK

Google has announced a ‘new approach’ in its ongoing battle with China over censorship.

Until recently, the firm automatically redirected Chinese users to its unfiltered search site in Hong Kong to get round censorship issues.

Google has said it will now stop this after Beijing warned it could lose its licence to operate in the country.

Instead, Chinese users will be sent to a ‘landing page’. Clicking anywhere on it sends them to the Hong Kong site.

Google said it was hopeful that this subtle change – where users have to actively click on a link to access unfiltered search results rather than being automatically redirected – would allow it to continue operating in China.

Chinese law demands that companies use web servers based in China.

However, BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said there was no guarantee the Chinese authorities would accept the new arrangement.
‘Sophisticated attack’

Google announced the changes one day before its Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence – necessary to operate in the country – was due to expire.

It’s called the ‘Google Dance’.

To show up at the top of Google’s search pages, companies regularly have to change the way their websites work, fine-tuning them as Google constantly updates its search algorithm.

Right now, Google is doing its very own Google Dance, but to the tune of the Chinese authorities.

Google can’t afford to be kicked out of China – not commercially, because China already is the world’s largest internet market, and not ideologically, because you cannot claim to ‘organise the world’s information’ if you have one massive black hole right in the middle of it.

While search engine optimisation is relatively straightforward, Google will find it much harder if not impossible to please China’s political algorithm.

The Chinese authorities want to control what their citizens watch and read. Google’s latest move doesn’t meet this goal. But yielding control would critically damage Google’s brand in the rest of the world.

‘Without an ICP licence, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China,’ said David Drummond of the firm in a blog post.

‘That’s a prospect dreaded by many of our Chinese users, who have been vocal about their desire to keep Google.cn alive.’

A spokesperson for the firm said Google was about to submit its new ICP application to the government and had made the changes in an effort to continue operating in the country.

It has already begun to channel some Chinese web users to the new page.

‘Over the next few days we’ll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP licence renewal application based on this approach,’ said Mr Drummond.

Google has had a long history of run-ins with the Chinese authorities.

However, these escalated in January when the search firm announced that it was considering withdrawing from China altogether following a ’sophisticated’ cyber attack originating from the country.

The attacks targeted the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, along with the computers and infrastructure of Google and several other US firms.

The firm eventually decided to stay in the country, but offer Chinese users unfiltered results through its Hong Kong servers.

The latest move was part of the firm’s ambition to ‘make information available to users everywhere,’ said Mr Drummond.

‘This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self censor and, we believe, with local law. We are therefore hopeful that our licence will be renewed.’

China hopes that nearly half the population will have access to the internet within five years. That figure is nearly 30% at the moment.

Losing business in the country could harm Google’s future growth prospects.

However, unlike in other markets, Google is not focused on search in China, which is currently dominated by Baidu.

Instead, experts say, Google aims to develop its music and maps services in the country.

‘We work with any company that obeys the law’

China’s second largest wireless carrier – China Unicom – has said it will remove Google’s search service from the Android phones it developed in tandem with the web giant, citing the company’s decision to reroute Google.cn to uncensored servers in Hong Kong.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

(Via NYT > Technology.)

3/22/2010 12:03:00 PM
On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their computers. We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered—combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger—had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google’s wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

By MIGUEL HELFT and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: March 22, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — Just over two months after threatening to leave China because of censorship and intrusions by Chinese hackers, Google said Monday that it was closing its China-based Internet search service and instead directing Chinese users to a Hong Kong-based uncensored version of its search engine, which may get blocked in mainland China.

In a blog post, Google also said that it would retain much of its existing China operations, including its research and development team and its local sales force. The stunning move represents a powerful slap at Beijing regulators but also a risky ploy in which Google — one of the world’s technology powerhouses — will essentially turn its back on the world’s largest Internet market, with nearly 400 million Web users and growing quickly.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)