rss feedThe New York Times: Google hacking linked to two Chinese universities
Computer security experts in the United States have linked the hacking of Google’s computers – publicly disclosed last month – to two Chinese universities, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Those schools are Shanghai Jiaotong University, a prestigious institution, and Lanxiang Vocational School. Experts who are investigating the hacking include specialists from the National Security Agency.
The Chinese government has denied involvement in the attacks in which Google code reportedly was stolen and the Gmail accounts of people critical of Chinese leaders were compromised.
Reporters John Markoff and David Barboza used careful wording in their article as to whether the Chinese government actually had a role in the much talked about attacks:
If supported by further investigation, the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources.
They included information that raises the possibility that an instructor from the Ukraine might have ties to the attacks:
Tracing the attacks further back, to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school, is a breakthrough in a difficult task. Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school.
Still, U.S. officials are looking at all sources of the attacks, the newspaper reported:
Within the computer security industry and the Obama administration, analysts differ over how to interpret the finding that the intrusions appear to come from schools instead of Chinese military installations or government agencies. Some analysts have privately circulated a document asserting that the vocational school is being used as camouflage for government operations. But other computer industry executives and former government officials said it was possible that the schools were cover for a “false flag” intelligence operation being run by a third country. Some have also speculated that the hacking could be a giant example of criminal industrial espionage, aimed at stealing intellectual property from American technology firms. Independent researchers who monitor Chinese information warfare caution that the Chinese have adopted a highly distributed approach to online espionage, making it almost impossible to prove where an attack originated.
Keep in mind that Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to visit the United States this year – with one media report noting that it might happen in April.
Google announced that it might leave China because of the attacks and wants to operate an unfiltered Google.cn in that country. But the Silicon Valley-based company has been in talks with Chinese leaders and has not released any updates since last month.
Some have speculated that Google’s move is a calculated strategic business move to gain more market share in a country that has a reported 384 million Internet users. Baidu, a Chinese company, is the search leader in the world’s most populous country.
What’s that old phrase used in television in the United States?
Stay tuned.
My previous posts about Google in China can be found here.
