Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre, which studies the intersection of digital policy and human rights, said Google’s move didn’t come as a surprise.
“It’s become unsustainable for Google to operate in this environment,” he said. “They’ve made a decision that the risks are too great for them, so they’re going to pull out.”
From CNN Continue reading
“The Google attacks were taken extremely seriously — more than just an incident of potential industrial espionage but a major body blow to the American political system,” said Ronald Deibert, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Toronto.. Continue reading
Cyberspace attacks are set to increase. Here’s why – and here’s what we can do to stop them.
The recent cyberespionage attacks on Google and that company’s subsequent announcement that it would reconsider its search engine services in China gripped the world’s focus and set off a debate about China’s aggressive cybersecurity strategy.
Continue reading
For years, innovative solutions to sidestep Internet filters have plagued Internet censors. Rebellious kids, hoping to sneak a peek around parental controls, have come up with some of the best of these ideas. Others are highly sophisticated open-source systems tended to by brainy PhD.’s and caffeine-fueled programmers.
Continue reading
Google’s announcement that it had been hit by cyberattacks from China and that it’s reconsidering its services in that country has smacked the world like a thunderclap: Why the drastic move? How will China respond? Will other companies with interests in China, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, follow suit? What does it mean for the future of cyberspace?
Continue reading
There has been quite a lot of coverage of Google’s statement concerning the attacks it experienced and its reconsideration of its service offerings in China. Google made reference to our Ghostnet investigation, and felt that there might be a direct connection between the two. At this point, and with the evidence at hand, we believe they are similar in nature, but probably distinct attacks. Much more, I’m sure, will be revealed in weeks to come. Citizen Lab associates have been commenting on the attacks and the wider implications in the press and elsewhere. Below are some selected sources:
Citizen Lab, Psiphon and SecDev’s Nart Villeneuve’s reaction
CBC As it Happens (My interview starts at the beginning of Part 3)
I recently gave a Policy@Google Talk on December 8th 2009 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA. The talk was an overview of Internet censorship patterns worldwide, with a focus on the work of the OpenNet Initiative and some references to challenges around circumvention technologies. Google’s Free Expression point person, Bob Boorstin introduces….
In an effort to tailor its services to the requirements of China’s Internet filtering regime, Google announced last week that it had created a special version of its search engine for the China market, Google.cn.
Our OpenNet Initiative team put together a neat little search comparison tool that you can access here that allows you to enter in search term and keywords and see the variation in results between Google.com and Google.cn side by side.
Weekly Standard has a nice little article on our most recent bulletins on China. It looks like we’re helping to put a bit of pressure on Google to live up to their own highly publicized ethical standards. They just released this in response to our colleagues at DIT discovering that Google news searches in China are filtered.