Google remains at risk in China

China’s government confirmed that it renewed Google Inc’s Internet license, after the US company’s local venture pledged to allow its Web content to be supervised by regulators, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Beijing Guxiang Information Technology Co, operator of Google’s China website, has undertaken to comply with Chinese law and provide no law-breaking content, Xinhua reported, citing an unidentified official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Getting the go-ahead gives Google, which disclosed China’s decision to renew its license last week, a chance to win search share lost to market leader Baidu Inc and woo advertisers put off by the company’s half-year dispute with the government. Some Google operations were in jeopardy as it balked at censorship rules that require companies to filter Web content.

Google was surprised by how quickly China renewed the company’s Internet-services license, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a July 9 interview. There were no formal negotiations between Google and Chinese officials over the decision, a person familiar with the matter said.

China renewed the license through 2012, and officials will revisit the decision annually. China’s government can still use its authority to yank the license if it deems Google’s compliance wanting, said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Caris & Co. in San Francisco.

‘At risk’
“Google remains at risk in China,” Aggarwal said. “Chinese regulators gave them a back door.”

Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, went public with its dispute in January, saying it was no longer willing to comply with China’s filtering regulations.

“We look forward to continuing to provide Web search and local products to our users in China,” the company said on its July 9 blog. Spokeswoman Jessica Powell declined to say whether China had imposed any conditions on renewing the permit.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, won approval after changing the way it handled search requests. After closing its Chinese search engine in March, it had been automatically redirecting users to its unfiltered site in Hong Kong. To allay officials’ concerns, Google added an extra hurdle for Chinese Web surfers, directing them to a landing page that in turn pointed them to the Hong Kong site.

Google warns Chinese Goojje

Google has warned a copycat Chinese website to stop using a logo that resembles the US Internet giant's or face possible legal action, state media reported Monday.

The warning issued to the "Goojje" website comes as Google is contemplating its future in China after saying it would no longer obey government censorship rules and could pull out entirely over alleged cyberattacks.

Google accused Goojje of infringing on its trademark rights, saying the logo of the Chinese website could make users believe it was authorised by or linked to the US company, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported.

In a letter sent to Goojje by Google's lawyers, the US Internet firm demanded the Chinese site stop using the logo by Monday, the report said.

Google China did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

Reports have said Goojje was launched last month by a 20-strong team led by a college student identified only by the surname Wen, after Google issued its threat to pull out from China.

The operators of Goojje have posted vague statements on the website construed by some media as offering support for Google.

Goojje's homepage imitates Google's design and its Chinese name ends with a character that means "big sister". Google's Chinese name, meanwhile, ends with a character that is a homonym for "big brother".

Google said last month it would no longer abide by Chinese government censorship and was mulling leaving the country with the world's largest number of online users, citing cyberattacks on it and more than 20 other companies.

The Chinese government has denied any involvement in the cyberattacks.

The Google row has added to tensions between Beijing and Washington on a range of other issues including trade, US arms sales to Taiwan, and Tibet.

Twitter blocked in China?

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams today said he had been told that his microblogging service has been partially blocked in China but had no confirmation.

"That's what I've been told," he said, adding that he had "heard reports on that" but that the company did not have direct confirmation.

Williams said that China can use a firewall to block access to the service.

"There are ways for users to get around it, but I'm not an expert on that," he said, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

When asked about media reports that Twitter was developing ways to get around the firewall, Williams said he had been "misquoted."

"We're not actively developing any way to get around it," he said, although he stressed that "we're for the free exchange of information."

Asked if his company had noticed any cyber attacks, such as those launched against search engine giant Google from China, he said that no such moves had been detected.

China slams US criticism of Internet control

China needs no lessons about its Internet from the United States, the head of an online media association said through official media on Saturday, after the United States rapped Beijing over information freedom.

Following a speech by U Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Thursday, Beijing has issued a stinging response that it is jamming the free flow of words and ideas on the Internet, accusing the United States of damaging relations between the two countries by imposing its "information imperialism" on China. In her speech in Washington, Clinton cited China as among a number of countries where there has been "a spike in threats to the free flow of information" over the past year. She also named Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Washington, meanwhile, carried its message on Internet freedom directly to Chinese bloggers. The U S Embassy in Beijing, and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou, hosted Internet-streamed discussions with members of the blogging community on Friday afternoon - the latest example of Washington's outreach to Chinese bloggers as a way of spreading its message.

Clinton's speech came on the heels of a Jan. 12 threat from Google to pull out of China unless the government relented on censorship. Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said on Thursday that the company hoped to find a way to maintain a presence in China but intended to stop censoring search results within "a reasonably short time."

"On the Internet question, China doesn't need any lessons from the United States on what to do or how," said Min Dahong, Chairman, Beijing Association of Online Media.

Internet control is considered a critical matter of state security in China, and Beijing is not expected to offer any concessions. Beijing promotes Internet use for commerce, but heavily censors content it deems pornographic, anti-social or politically subversive and blocks many foreign news and social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook and the popular video site YouTube.

Responses to the Google issue have ranged widely among Chinese Internet users, with some placing flowers at its Beijing headquarters and others penning screeds bidding good riddance.

U S State Department officials have said they intend to lodge a formal complaint with Chinese officials soon over the Google matter. Clinton not only urged China to investigate the cyber intrusions but openly publish its findings.

Google to stop censorship in China

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said on Thursday that the Internet giant is still censoring Web search results in China but that will change in a "reasonably short time from now."

"We're in conversation with the Chinese government," Schmidt told financial analysts in a conference call after releasing Google's fourth quarter results.

"Our business in China is today unchanged," said Schmidt, speaking a little over a week after the Internet giant revealed it had come under attack from cyber spies based in China.

"We continue to follow their laws, we continue to offer censored results," Schmidt said. "But in a reasonably short time from now we will be making some changes there."

Schmidt did not provide any further details. Google said last week that it would no longer censor Web search results in China even if that meant it had to shut down its business operations there and leave the country.

Schmidt said Google would like to remain in China. "We made a strong statement that we wish to remain in China," he said. "We like the Chinese people, we like our Chinese employees.

"We like the business opportunities there, but we'd like to do that on somewhat different terms than we have," Schimdt said.

The Google chief executive also said the cyberattacks on Google and other companies which targeted Chinese human rights activists were "still under investigation."

"We believe we've made the necessary technical changes to prevent such a future attack," he said.

Google, don’t be evil on India!

It seems Google has forgotten to follow its `Don’t be Evil’ motto when it comes to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Controversy has once again surrounded search engine giant Google. Strangely, for a second time, it revolves around its depiction of Arunachal Pradesh.

If you browse through Google Maps, the application has at least three different versions on the state either a part of India or China, and a third as a disputed territory. All this despite fact that the north eastern state has a democratically elected government and should so not be an undisputed territory in any case.

What throws up when you open Google India is politically correct Arunachal Pradesh remains a part of India. If you open the Google Maps’ China edition, Arunachal Pradesh would show itself as an undisputed part of China, the whole of it. But when you open the map available on the international edition, Arunachal Pradesh is shown as a disputed territory, a third version on the north eastern state.

Google has reacted to its three different takes on Arunachal Pradesh. Claiming it is only following standard practice to show all disputed regions around the world on its global properties, depict disputed regions as per the claims made by the disputing or claiming nations. Adding it does not in any way endorse or affirm the position taken by any side but merely provides complete information on the prevailing geo-political situation.

“Products that have been localized to the local domain of a region may depict that country's position as per the mandate of their local laws. As in the case of Google India and Google China,” Google said in a statement.

Remember in August this year, Google Earth came in for sharp criticism in India for what Google subsequently described as a mistaken use of Chinese script to mark areas in Arunachal Pradesh. “Earlier this week, as part of routine update to Google Earth, we published new data for the Arunachal Pradesh region that changed the depiction of certain place names in the product. The change was a result of a mistake in our processing of new map data,” said Google in an earlier statement.

Google’s China hack, an insider’s job?

Google is investigating whether one or more employees may have helped facilitate a cyber-attack from China that the US search giant said it was a victim of in mid-December, two sources told Reuters.

Google, the world's most popular search engine, said last week it may pull out of the world's biggest Internet market by users after reporting it had been hit by a "sophisticated" cyber-attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

The sources, who are familiar with the situation, told Reuters that the attack, which targeted people who have access to specific parts of Google networks, may have been facilitated by people working in Google China's office.

"We're not commenting on rumour and speculation. This is an ongoing investigation, and we simply cannot comment on the details," a Google spokeswoman said.

Security analysts told Reuters the malicious software (malware) used in the Google attack was a modification of a trojan called Hydraq. A trojan is malware that, once inside a computer, allows someone unauthorised access. The sophistication in the attack was in knowing whom to attack, not the malware itself, the analysts said.

Local media, citing unnamed sources, reported that some Google China employees were denied access to internal networks after January 13, while some staff were put on leave and others transferred to different offices in Google's Asia Pacific operations. Google said it would not comment on its business operations.

Google, which has denied rumours that it has already decided to shut down its China offices, said on Monday it contacted the Chinese government last week after the announcement.

"We are going to have talks with them in the coming few days," Google said. Google is also still in the process of scanning its internal networks since the cyber-attack in mid-December.

China has tried to play down Google's threat to leave, saying there are many ways to resolve the issue, but insisting all foreign companies, Google included, must abide by Chinese laws.

Washington said it was issuing a diplomatic note to China formally requesting an explanation for the attacks.

The Google issue risks becoming another irritant in China's relationship with the United States. Ties are already strained by arguments over the yuan currency's exchange rate, which US critics say is unfairly low, trade protectionism and US arms sales to Taiwan.

Washington has long been worried about Beijing's cyber-spying programme. A congressional advisory panel said in November the Chinese government appeared increasingly to be penetrating US computers to gather useful data for its military.

'China tried to hack India's computers'

Chinese hackers have tried to penetrate computers in the offices of National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, a British paper quoted him as saying.

Narayanan said his office and other government departments were targeted on December 15, the same date that US defence, finance and technology companies, including Google, reported cyber attacks from China.

"This was not the first instance of an attempt to hack into our computers," Narayanan told The Times in an interview, adding the would-be hackers sent an e-mail with a PDF attachment containing a Trojan virus.

The virus, which allows hackers to download or delete files, was detected and officials were told not to log on until it was eliminated, Narayanan said.

"People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese. It is difficult to find the exact source but this is the main suspicion. It seems well founded," he told The Times, adding that India was cooperating with the US and Britain to bolster its cyber defences.

The Chinese government has denied any role in the attacks, with a foreign ministry spokeswoman saying: "Hacking in whatever form is prohibited by law in China."

Narayanan said that while he expected China to be an increasingly high security priority for India, the main threat still came from militants based in Pakistan.

He said Islamabad had done nothing to dismantle militant groups since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and criticised Britain for accepting its excuse that such groups were beyond its control.

"The British are still blinkered on this. We believe Pakistan's policy of using terror as a policy weapon remains," Narayanan said, adding India is anxious to prevent an attack from Pakistan during the Commonwealth Games in October.

"From Pakistan's point of view, it's important to disrupt the Games so you can claim that India is not a safe place," Narayanan said.

IE flaws led to Google hack

The Chinese managed to hack Google accounts of human activists and many businesses as they took advantage of vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser which were previously unknown, according to reports.

Google has threatened to close its operations and offices in China after hacking and "phishing" attempts to break into gmail accounts of US, China and Europe based Chinese human rights activists.

The company, which agreed to censor of Google.cn at its launch in 2006, has also said it is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn."

Reports quoted security researcher McAfee Inc. as saying that IE is vulnerable on all of Microsoft's operating systems, including Windows 7.

What is now termed as 'operation Aurora', is being perceived as a quite sophisticated attack. the report added that 'phishers' fooled users into clicking on a link to a website. This website then secretly downloaded malicious software onto their computers. The spyware allowed the hackers to take remote control of the computers.

Microsoft has already admitted in its blog that IE browser might be used by hackers to remotely spy on infected computers. It is likely to unveil a software update for the browser. "We need to take all cyber attacks, not just this one, seriously," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told CNBC. "We have a whole team of people that responds in very real time to any report that it may have something to do with our software, which we don't know yet," he said.

Google has said that "these accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers."

We will stay in China: Microsoft

Microsoft Corp has no plans to pull out of China, its chief executive has said, playing down concerns about recent cyber-attacks and censorship raised by rival Google Inc.

The company's stance indicates the world's largest software maker is not likely to support its fierce rival in its battle with China and rebuffs broad US political backing for Google.

"There are attacks every day. I don't think there was anything unusual, so I don't understand," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Reuters after a meeting on modernizing government services at the White House.

"We're attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody else is too. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

Recently, Google threatened to pull out of China - the world's biggest Internet market by users - citing censorship and cyber attacks on rights activists' email accounts there.

Google claimed more than 20 other large companies had been the target of cyber-attacks originating in China, but Microsoft has said it has no evidence any of its e-mail services or corporate networks being specifically attacked.

When asked if Microsoft had any plan to pull its business out of China, Ballmer answered "No."

"I don't understand how that helps anything. I don't understand how that helps us and I don't understand how that helps China," Ballmer said.

Microsoft has high hopes for its Bing Internet search engine in China, which has only a small share of the market, but could benefit if Google, the No. 2 player behind dominating local rival Baidu Inc, pulls out.

Ballmer's comments run counter to broad political support for Google. The White House said on Thursday it is backing Google's decision to no longer support China's censoring of searches.

A group of Republican lawmakers on Thursday called for tech heavyweights Cisco Systems Inc, Yahoo Inc and Microsoft to speak out against censorship, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged tech companies not to assist China's attempts to prohibit free exchange of ideas.

Google may pull out of China

Google Inc said it may pull out of China because it is no longer willing to accept censorship of search results and after hackers coordinated a sophisticated attack on email accounts of human rights activists using its Gmail service.

Google's surprise announcement on Tuesday came shortly after an adviser to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she will announce a technology policy next week to help citizens in other countries to gain access to an uncensored Internet.

More than 20 other companies were also attacked by the China-based hackers, Google said. Google said the hackers had tried to access the Gmail email accounts of Chinese human rights activists but only managed to access two unidentified accounts, and then only headlines and other data such as when the account was created.

It did not say what information the hackers tried to access from the other corporations, nor which they were. Google said it was now notifying the other affected corporations, adding that it was working with the US authorities.

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered -- combined with attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web -- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Google said in a statement.

Made in China : iPhone Nano

Internet world has been abuzz about Apple launching iPhone Nano for quite sometime. Every few months, grapevines suggest Apple working on a Nano version of iPhone. In fact, only last month a new patent filed by Apple again fueled iPhone Nano rumors. But all these so far remain mere speculations, with no official confirmation.

However, in faraway Shenzhen (China) an iPhone Nano has actually hit the shelves. The made in China iPhone Nano is widely available in the country including on online stores (may be you can check our own grey markets too!). These iPhone Nano models available from several Chinese companies offer several high-end features and come at an attractive price tag.

Here’s looking into the Chinese avatar of iPhone Nano.

Display and dimensions
* Display: 2.4 inch touchscreen LCD, 260 thousand color; 240 x 320px

* Dimensions: 105x55x10mm (LxWxH)

* Language: English, Chinese (Simplified)

* MP3 & MP4 player

* FM radio

Camera & connectivity
* 5 MP Camera, with video recording;

* ROM: 512MB

* Data Transfer: USB cable/ card-reader/Bluetooth (file transmission, voice, stereo)

* Lithium batteries


Miscellaneous features
* Supports caller’s picture option, group ring tone; 64 chord ring tone

* Telephone directories: 300 groups of contacts

* Messages: Supports both SMS and MMS (150 messages, MMS)

* Schedule power on/off: Supports auto start/close

Pricing and colours
* Standby time: 220-260 hours

* Talk time: 120-180 minutes

* Colours available: Black and silver

* Price $90




Source : TOI

Be careful before buying your food at Wal-Mart..!!

Well, are you enjoying seeing Chinese food popping up in your supermarket left and right..? Have you noticed you can't buy a single package of fish that isn't made in China (or Vietnam)..? Do you think your food from China is processed in a sanitary manner, and thus safe to eat? Take a look at this...!!!

REMEMBER WAL-MART is one of the LARGEST BUYERS OF CHINESE PRODUCTS..

THINK ABOUT IT.

These undercover enclosed pictures speak a thousand words. Avoid buying all processed food packaged in China. Anything goes! We just don't know what else is in those packages. Unlike in the U.S. and Canada, China does not have laws regulating food processing.

On that note: also avoid using disposable chopsticks in the restaurant. Apparently, they have been bleached to look white! We certainly don't need bleach in our body and if left behind by customers they are just re-used.

Basically, do not buy any processed food from China, also Hong Kong, too. MANY companies are using a Hong Kong address to avoid this type of image reputation.

Early dawn, starts the day by riding around to collect dead chickens














Asking around for dead chickens














Total of 5 riders are hired by the boss to ride to farms to buy dead chickens














A dead chicken cost 1 RMB and would be sold at 9 RMB after processing














Storage for the dead chickens in the court yard














Carcasses are thrown everywhere















On the floor
















Four employees start de-feathering the dead fowl after soaking in boiling water from a rusty wok
















Enduring the pungent odour, but sometimes, it gets so terrible that even the most experienced of the workers would puke
















Workers rushing to get the chickens de-feathered
















A discarded bath tub being used to soak the bare skin dead chicken. The contaminated water would have accelerated the decomposition process














Wearing slippers walking among the chickens before the coloring processing














After the colour y, its creepy to find that they are quite tenderising
















And now presenting the mouth watering Charcoal Roasted Chicken!





















Do NOT buy food originating in China (or Vietnam or Thailand)! Take the time to read the labels and look for country of origin! STOP BUYING ANYTHING FROM CHINA.

( Hey... I found this information over the internet. I was shocked after reading this. So i am putting it here just to make an awareness. I don't want to hurt anyone's sentiments.)

Sources :
news-163.com
mmoabc.com