Web Forum: Internet news

Jan 22 2010 by Andrew Jackson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE weird thing about cyberwar is that most of the time, no-one even knows it’s happening.

We might all have remained ignorant if Google hadn’t piped up last week, with an extraordinary blog post (googleblog.blogspot.com) listing a series of allegations of cyber attacks ‘originating in China.’

First, attempts had been made to gain access to G-mail accounts belonging to Chinese dissidents and human rights activists. Second, there had been a ‘highly sophisticated and targeted attack’ on Google’s own network, and networks belonging to ‘at least 20 other large companies.’

Google didn’t say it outright, but the implication was very clear – they held the Chinese government directly responsible for the cyber attacks.

Most companies would have stopped there, but Google has such enormous power, it was able to take one more step: stop its own self-imposed censorship of search results in China.

Ever since opening google.cn in 2006, Google has faced criticism for agreeing to censor the results Chinese people see there. The company was slammed for working against its own ‘Don’t be evil’ motto.

In the words of one commentator, Google has now put China on the internet naughty step. The company said it would hold talks with the authorities to see if an unfiltered google.cn site could stay open within the law, and if not, well, Google will simply shut it down.

And to think, when Google launched in the 1990s, people thought it was just another search site.

IS YOUR PHONE SAFE?

Smartphones are the new big thing. If your phone has a web browser on it, you need to be careful because your phone could be infected with internet-based software nasties just as easily as your computer. And phones don’t tend to have antivirus software installed. One growing threat right now is ‘diallers’ – bits of malicious code that install themselves from dodgy web pages (often porn sites). These then wait until the middle of the night and dial an international phone number for hours – which you have to pay for. The money goes straight to the scammers.

BROWSING... HELPING HAITI

Donate via the Disasters Emergency Committee: www.dec.org.uk

Audio report from the US Geological Survey explaining the cause: www.usgs.gov/corecast/details.asp?ep=117