Select links below to follow a particular current topic about Google
This is going to be a great fight. The basic news is that Google has been detecting cyber attacks from China that includes a theft of "intellectual property." Google executives are so pissed off that they have decided to stop their self-censorship and to re-evaluate whether Google will remain there at all. It is highly likely it will not, because China will never accept an uncensored search engine.
Why is Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following up on Google's report of a cyber-attack from China and its threat to withdraw from Chinese soil with her own remarks condemning the country's policies?
Makes you wonder what conversations may have gone on behind closed doors between President Barack Obama and one of his science/technology advisors, Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Secretary Clinton has called for the Chinese government to conduct a "transparent" probe into who was behind the attacks. (WSJ summary) Yeah, good luck with that.
For good measure, she threw in the names of other countries that love to censor too much, including Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Sounds like a list Google could have provided, as it has done in certain books.
Can there be any doubt that everybody thinks or knows the attack was perpetrated by the Chinese government? I mean, come on, if the search for dissidents doesn't show it, Secretary Clinton's involvement has to. Chinese officials think so, and are pissed. (Another WSJ article)
"We urge the U.S. side to respect the facts, and to stop using the so-called Internet freedom issue to make groundless charges against China," Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Friday in a statement on the ministry's Web site.
Secretary Clinton sent a message to the Chinese that businesses are hampered without a free flow of information.
"Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions," she said.
Sounds like a message to China, like President Obama's earlier statements in support of Google, that the U.S. government approves of the threat to withdraw.
Perhaps this is a way for the U.S. government to encourage other U.S. companies to also put pressure on China to change its ways.
I don't think Microsoft will, though. Steve Ballmer displayed a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease by discounting this whole issue.
Of course, Microsoft doesn't call it Aurora. It's the "Google Attack."
Microsoft says it was an old version of Internet Explorer (IE 6) that was vulnerable, anyway.
The patch is due tomorrow (Thursday Jan 20, 2010, in case you're reading this next year when there's another Microsoft security problem.) According to Microsoft senior security program manager Jerry Bryant, the patch
"addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and a small subset of corporations. Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicized."
Yeah. Why so much publicity over an attack that may have been perpetrated by an oppressive government against civil rights advocates and a small subset of 20 to 34 corporations doing business in China?
.
In a blog post, McAfee CTO names the attack Aurora.
He says the attackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Internet Explorer."We informed Microsoft about this vulnerability and Microsoft is expected to publish an advisory on the matter soon.:
Attackers chose a few people within an organization, (he suspects they chose people with access to intellectual property). Looks like a trusted source wants you to click on a link (that old scam?) which then opens a back door that allows attackers to "gain complete control over the compromised system. The attacker can now identify high value targets and start to siphon off valuable data from the company."
Read the blog posting:
http://siblog.mcafee.com/cto/operation-“aurora”-hit-google-others/
UPDATE ON AURORA 1/15/2010 9:30AM
Taylor Buley at Forbes has a nice update on Aurora today.
Taylor talked to Ed Skoudis, a cybersecurity researcher with IntelGuardians for some perspective on IE vulnerabilities, something that most experts thought was disappearing as IE aged. Not.
It was surprising to realize that this back door had been sitting there, possibly for years, and yet nobody had found or snuck through it before. The Chinese hackers were either "very clever or very lucky," says Skoudis.
Dmitri Alperovitch at McAfee votes for clever. The code was very sophisticated and written from scratch, not kluged out of some cookie cutter code.
Microsoft admits that the IE back entrance was "one of the vectors" in the attack.
Time to stop patching some of these old programs and start re-writing them from scratch.
China just wants you to follow their laws. Of course, those laws include the right to hack into your data. Just to make sure you're not doing anything bad, mind you.
Here's an article by Aaron Black in the Wall Street Journal. http://bit.ly/8XGF6s
Oops. You gotta pay for that one.
OK, here's an article by Aaron Black syndicated through the Dow Jones newswire service:
http://bit.ly/8xX5jr
China foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu:
Our laws are in line with International practice.
(Like Iran, Cuba, Egypt... http://bit.ly/8poswN )
Is our government bound by our cyber laws? Huh? You've gotta ask someone else.
Warrant? What's a warrant?
Marketwatch summary.
http://bit.ly/5rcHdC
Interesting claim from Microsoft that "At this point, we don't have any indication that our corporate network or any of our mail properties were attacked." Considering the fact that McAfee says it was a flaw in Internet Explorer that allowed the attack to take place.
That could mean one of several things:
-- Microsoft employees in China don't use IE
-- The Chinese attackers don't consider Microsoft intellectual property important enough to go after
-- Microsoft employees know a suspicious request when they see it and don't click on it
-- Microsoft just hasn't detected the attacks yet.
Since Google announced "A new approach to China" on Jan 12, Google stock has dropped 1.6 percent, while its home-grown Chinese competitor, Baidu, has seen its stock gain 16 percent.
There are several things to say about this.
1. How much data was stolen?
First, exactly how big were the attacks, and what data may have been compromised either at Google or at the other companies where Google detected attacks?
The announcement of the attacks in the Google blog says there was "theft of intellectual property from Google." The only "intellectual property" it actually mentions is a little info about the creation of Gmail accounts, such as the dates they were created and subject line, was compromised. Did the attackers get any other intellectual property from Google besides this info?
A Google spokesperson tells me, "So far we don't have any evidence of anything else" being taken. But phrase "so far" means they could still find more later. Also, the spokesperson says Google does not know what, if anything, may have been taken from or compromised at any of the other companies where it detected the attacks.
2. Should Google get rid of data sooner to protect privacy?
This shows that data is vulnerable, even when protected with Google's sophisticated safeguards. Google keeps data for nine months, but privacy and human rights advocates say it should be less and will certainly point to this example as a reason to cut the retention time.
But there's a dilemma here. On one hand, reducing the length of time that information is kept would reduce the amount of vulnerable info. But on the other, Google's retained data may have helped it discover the attack. In an interview for my book on Google, I discussed both China and privacy issues with Google lawyer Nicole Wong. We discussed why Google keeps personal information for nine months. She spoke primarily of "denial of service" attacks, but it should apply to others. According to Wong:
"The fact of the matter is that the person successfully attacking us today has probably been trying for two years. So when we go back into the logs for a substantial amount of time, we're able to detect the pattern we have today."
Wong said that's one of the reasons they do not want to get rid of data any sooner -- that nine months is already a compromise. 18 months would be better.
Analyzing whatever data Google and the other companies have retained will now better equip them to better prevent similar attacks in the future. This debate will only intensify.
3. Were Microsoft and Yahoo also attacked? Who else?
Who were the other companies attacked? Google says it detected at least 20 other companies were similarly attacked, and the New York Times hears from experts that the number may be 34. Google, of course, would never reveal the names of the other companies it informed of the attacks, but it says:
"a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted."
It would make sense that they were companies doing business in China. Companies with similar services at Google -- search engines and email systems -- seem obvious choices. Microsoft, Yahoo, Baidu? (But those are just guesses.) How safe is the info at any company doing business in China? Will any of the other companies that were attacked admit it? Google's stock dropped 1.77% today. Because of this news? Will other companies risk taking the hit? Is anyone else willing to leave China as a result.
I'll give you a hint on that one: No.
4. Did the Chinese government do it?
This was a sophisticated, well-funded attack. The New York Times says that servers in Taiwan and Texas appear to have been involved. Google's description of some of the attacks -- "highly sophisticated", "at least twenty other companies" targeted, the "primary goal" being trying to get info about "Chinese human rights activists" -- certainly suggests this was an attack by the Chinese government. Somebody had a lot of technology, time and money to do this. The New York Times thinks so:
"Google did not publicly link the Chinese government to the cyber attack, but people with knowledge of Google’s investigation said they had enough evidence to justify its actions."
The U.S. government has to be investigating this as well. Another guess.
5. Google is pissed!
One thing is for sure. Google management -- and particularly Sergey Brin, who has always had misgivings about the decision to enter China -- are really pissed. The attacks tipped the debate in favor of withdrawing. Now I wonder if other companies will follow suit.
I'll give you a hint on that one also: See above.
That's the plan, according to China Business News.
Here's part of the the computer-translated version of the Chinese story:
Google in April and China, said "goodbye"?
"We have received news that Google will be April 10 departure to China, but the news now Google has been no confirmation." Yesterday, a Google China authorized agent of "First Financial Daily" said that it was 4 inquire about Google's final decision on the Chinese market, but did not receive any real argument. If Google really had to leave China, and certainly with the aftermath, including the right agent to compensate.
Love those translation programs. More fun to read when you have t decipher as well.
If you want a more coherent version, try an article in Computer World. which picked up on the Chinese story.
The source is an "unidentified sales associate who works with the company."
Interesting if true. But Google doesn't really have any choice. Its reputation is more important than incremental revenues from China. Most companies (can I get a Bing! here?) wouldn't think so, but Sergey would.
When Google said it would end its self-censorship in China or leave, it backed itself into a corner with only two ways out. One it to stay and try to save face with some supposed concessions from China, which is as likely to compromise as a pit bull with its jaws locked on your foot. That out gives people reason to say "See? I told you Google was as evil and greedy as anyone else!"
The other, to actually leave China, silences the critics and boosts Google's reputation. It will give up a very lucrative marketplace in order to stick to its principles.
I'm impressed if this happens. Steve Ballmer will be too. He's a shark that smells chum in Google-less Chinese waters.
Long term, I think Google's reputation is more important. Trust is critical when you have a company with such an intimate relationship with your Internet habits.
Google has a lot of other new revenue sources to pursue. And it can keep trying to infiltrate China from outside, although that's nearly impossible right now. I wonder if China can block mobile phone access to Google search?
Probably.
Here's the best coverage of the Nexus One I've come across so far. I'll be adding more as I find it.
David Pogue at the New York Times has found some fine print in the contract when you buy a Nexus One.
Apparently, if you get the subsidized ($180) phone with a two-year contract from T-Mobile, then end up canceling early, you have to pay an early termination fee to T-Mobile and an "equipment recovery" fee to Google. The combined fees could add up to more than just buying the unlocked version of the phone.
Google News just took me to this article at WSJ about Nexus One users having trouble connecting to T-Mobile's 3G network.
Says Google then adds insult to injury by ... Oops! You've got to subscribe to WSJ to get the full article. Let's see, type a couple keywords into my Chrome browser ...
Ah, yes, here's the full article that the WSJ ran, on a NASDAQ site instead -- for free.
Says Google adds insult to injury by telling customers to submit email complaints but says not to expect an answer.
The NASDAQ site also has some nice ads...
The best and most thorough review so far comes from David Pogue at the New York Times. Fairly critical, gives excellent details on the setbacks (will it really play on other cell networks that T-Mobile?:
"It’s pretty sweet, it advances the state of the art, and it’s a welcome addition to the catalog of great app phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid."
But it's not an iPhone killer yet: "Despite the goodies, the Nexus is missing some important features that iPhone fans take for granted."
Pogue article
Walt Mossberg, genius product guy at the Wall Street Journal, offers a five-minute video explaining the basics of the phone, why it's important, and what he likes/dislikes about it. He's more positive than Pogue. Although his production quality isn't the greatest.
"It could be a game-changer."
"There are some downsides ... doesn't do media or games as well as the iPod. ... This is the first of the Android phones I have see n that I would consider using as my daily handheld computer."
Mossberg video
PCWorld has a one-minute video that plays like an ad for Google, showing the highlights of the features. A quick intro.
PCWorld video
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch just loves the phone. "The Nexus One is an important milestone in the smartphone market."
He also gives a very thorough run-through of the phone's features.
Arrington article
From the year 2000 to the year 2009 Google went from scoffed-at upstart startup to god of the Net Universe to the most evil thing to hit the Internet since Microsoft slapped Netscape around a few years ago.
Had you noticed that?
Here is some coverage of why Google is the new Microsoft. With my own commentary.
I have to declare this Hate Google Week, where people from all walks of crime declare their disdain of the 'What, me evil?' company.
Who's on the agenda so far?
Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman for the subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, wants the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize the proposed deal.
(EWeek article to give you the facts that the Wall Street Journal article hides behind its golden firewall.)
Concern about competition. Would give Google 24 percent of mobile ad market. But since all big companies are evil, we can't let it buy anything that would let it take an independent competitor off the market.
What happened to the days when a monopoly was not illegal unless it leverages its monopoly illegally to keep competitors out of the market? What happened to scrutiny of the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, which takes the #2 search engine out of the market? (Search Engine Land article.)
Oh, yeah, that's right. Microsoft would never try to leverage its monopoly unfairly.
Photographers, illustrators and others want to make sure nobody sees their work again. Google Books could provide them with free marketing by showing off talent that rotting away on library shelves and will never make those artists another dime. Hey, Google, you don't pay, you don't play. Maybe Google can just black out all the art work in the books it scans. Then the artists won't have to worry about it being seen again.
They want tens of thousands of dollars per infringement of each illustration, for which they were originally paid maybe $2,000, tops. Oh, now I see the motivation. Nice scam if you can get it.
Rupert Murdoch is again threatening to block Google from sending readers to his news sites
Mad-Eye Murdy tells the National Press club, "We're going to stop Google and others from taking our content!"
Taking it where, exactly? I thought Google took readers to the full article, not the other way around. Oh, well, we all know, as McMurdy says, that all news sites will charge subscriptions anyway. It's not like you can find the news anywhere else on the Internet.
Come on, folks, we've barely scratched the Google logo here. I'm sure we could get another lawsuit or two going.
I know! Google just updated its Maps applet for the Blackberry. (Info Week article) Let's sue Google to stop it from providing apps for mobile phone providers. That'll keep it from getting any more of a monopoly on the Internet mapping market. Then we can sue it again for damaging those smart device suppliers by making them less competitive with Android phones, thus increasing the chances of an Android monopoly.
No news sites were harmed in making this column. Except maybe the Wall Street Journal.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs used to be such a nice guy...
No, wait, that's not right. But he used to be friends with the Guys from Google. Several years ago at a Google annual meeting, Sergey Brin said that they loved and respected Apple, and that we should expect the companies to work together in the future. Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined Apple's board.
But would the two companies still respect each other the morning after Google started messing around with an Android? No. Jobs feels violated. He kicked Schmidt out of the love nest.
The folks at The iPhone blog don't think Nexus One is as good as the site's love child, the iPhone, and they have a video to prove it, while Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet thinks they're aimed at different markets. The iPhone is for the stylish, while the Nexus One is ... not.
They do seem to forget to mention that the Nexus One may appeal to people who don't want to use AT&T as a carrier.
Now, according to Business Week, Jobs is in discussions to replace Google as the default search engine on the iPhone with Bing, created by that powerhouse in search technology, Microsoft.
OK, that's not fair. Microsoft has done a good job with Bing. It has always taken the company three times to get it right.
According to one of Business Week's two sources on the matter:
"Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle" between Apple and Google.
Wow. That has to be the first time anyone has ever described Microsoft as a pawn.
One other bit of Apple news in the article:
Apple is also working on ways to manage ad placement on its mobile devices, a move that would encroach on Google's ad-serving business, the person says.
I wonder if that will be an advertising system for the stylish.
Nothing like a little British hyperbole to give us some perspective.
The Register says that "Google is the new Microsoft of the decade"
And here be the thinking, mateys.
The Background: "In the 1990s, Microsoft sullied the good name that it had started building in the 1970s by forcing OEMs to ship IE to kill Netscape..."
Oops. The Reg needs some older reporters. People with a memory going back further than 1996. Long before Netscape was even born, Microsoft killed off a whole industry of software companies -- Lotus, Borland, Software Publishing, Digital Research. It was supposedly tying products to its OS in the early 1990s and forcing PC makers to install that OS on ALL their machines or pay higher prices. The Justice Dept. and FTC went after Microsoft, but by the time they got around to doing anything the other companies were dead and newly-launched Netscape was the only company to defend. Well, young reporters are cheaper.
Google Evil #1. It now has its own Domain name Service, another "part of its ongoing effort to control just about everything you do on the net..
Uh, how does helping you register domain names "control" what you do? "No, we don't want you to use that domain name. Take this one instead." ? Yes, it give Da Google more info about you, but we'll deal with that in a sec.
Evil #2. Google tweaks its search algorithms, making it "a choke point for the majority of online ad dollars and traffic."
True. Da Google tweaks. But it's a non-government corporation. Nobody is forced to use it., and there is no evidence that Google is malicious or in any way tweaks the engine to its own advantage. In fact, if there were such evidence, people would flee Da Google faster than you can say "Let's switch to Bing!" We're sure Microsoft would be more honest and less self-serving than Google.
Evil#3. Google delivered Mozilla a "slap in the face by creating a competing browser.
Well, we all know it's evil for any CORPORATION to build its own browser out of an open source system when there's already another browser out there based on the same open source. DAMN evil.
Evil #4. We all know this one. Violates our privacy, doesn't care about user concerns, we just shouldn't be evil if we don't want Google to find anything bad about us, collecting data so it can "sell us more ads."
Sorry. You have no privacy any more, with or without Google. Google does more to safeguard the info it collects on us than any company in the universe. It was the only one resisting Bush-era subpoenas when Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo just caved. And it doesn't sell US ads with the data it collects about US. It sells ads to advertisers and gives us those that might interest US, without telling the advertisers anything about US. Why do you think people actually click on Google ads? I actually find Google's ads helpful (Ack! Don't hit me!) If Google were to disappear, our privacy would completely disappear. Again, if you don't like Google, go to Bing.
Come on, folks! You can do better than that! Give me some REAL examples of evil Google. I'll send you a really cool book! Free! Autographed! A Publisher's Weekly starred "must read!"
After years of resistance, the French Library Association "Bibliotheque National de France" (BNF) has agreed to let Google digitize their books.
This is rather funny, since when Google first announced its project, French officials complained that it only included American and British libraries, and felt their great culture was being left out. Then they opposed it, and now reluctantly went along with it.
Why? Google is paying them. The French had tried to set up their own digital library, but needs 80 million Euros just to digitize the works from 1870 to 1940. The French government is only willing to invest 5 million Euros a year.
Google has enough trouble living up to its non-evil philosophy. This event shows that it's not as good at managing people's data as the company insists. Now there's really something to point to, a level of incompetence we might expect from the phone companies, those scourges of misinformation and playground ethics dedicated to making our lives miserable in the pursuit of profits.
Apparently the software used in the Street View system included some experimental code from another Google engineer, unaware that the code would collect WiFi data.
Score one against those programmers using their 20 percent time for neat new ideas.
I still believe Google management and programmers try to do the right thing. But where are the checks and balances that are supposed to, among other things, protect user privacy? Yeah, the Google Programmer's Playground is a great thing. But Google has to make sure that games of strip poker don't make it into the curriculum. Who let this happen?
People and lawyers have been wondering whether Google's freewheeling management style can really keep things under control. Perhaps this indicates that the internal machinery is spinning a little too wildly.
Google tried to delete the data, but now an Oregon court demanded that it hand over that data. That's because of lawsuits alleging that Google invades people's privacy.
Yeah, that's right, hand over personal information to lawyers in order to help protect privacy.
This whole thing is nuttier than the inside of a chipmunk's cheeks.
Greed is bad. Fear is bad. Google is good.
As we enter a new year and, full of hope, crawl toward a better year than the one that brought many of us to our knees, I thought it would be good to stop and think for a moment about what it means to be an entrepreneur.
I take my example, of course, from the two most successful entrepreneurs in the world Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Despite the cynics (and I'm usually among the most cynical), and despite an arrogance born of oversized brains and an almost religious belief that they are doing the right thing, they really do their best to build an ethical business. Their model is the one that will prove to be the most successful in the coming decade. Get used to it.
Greed is no longer good. With all due respect to Andy Grove, a man I have always and still do admire, is a life built around greed and fear really worth living? The most fascinating thing to me is the irony that, in what has become the most hyper-competitive business climate the world has ever seen, greed and fear are no longer the best motivators for success.
Consider that when they were still at Stanford, Larry and Sergey wanted a search engine to be a non-profit. Scoff it you like (the folks at CNBC did when I mentioned this on-air) but it is absolutely true. They did go commercial, but when they did it, they did it on their own terms.
Neither men came from families with capitalist roots. Academia, not entrepreneurship, was the families' prominent aspiration. Certainly, when Larry and Sergey went to Stanford, they had a strong entrepreneurial leaning.
So how did two nerds with no business experience create such a successful company? Quite simple, really. They decided to ignore Wall Street.
In today's world, almost any CEO of a public company will tell you that his or her primary constituency is the shareholder. Larry and Sergey had a radical idea: What if your company was actually dedicated to making a great product, something that makes the world a little better? And what if you considered your customer to be your boss?
Every time they faced a business decision that would either benefit the users or increase revenues, they chose the users (and consider the fact that these were not even "customers," since Google's revenues come from advertisers, not users.) They even favored the customers over advertisers when it seemed as though the decision would reduce revenues and profits. If that makes you nervous, do not buy Google stock.
That is what being an entrepreneur should be all about. Larry, Sergey - and Craig Newmark, for that matter - show that the right approach to business can do more than bring wealth, it can bring contentment, a sense of satisfaction, a sense of self-worth. Now compare that to greed and fear.
That is not to say that wealth is bad. I wish I had some. But as it happens, these ideals turn out to be the surest path to success. This is the most hyper-competitive business environment the world has ever seen, thanks to the Internet. It's reducing old industries to rubble and rebuilding new versions from the wreckage -- sometimes way too slowly (I know; I'm a journalist.)
The only way to compete in that environment is to return to basics: Products built with the most intense passion, designed and sold with the highest regard for the customers, created for the sake of the product itself, not for the wealth it brings.
The new opportunities the Internet brings make this approach essential. Why does Google get into so many new businesses -- a smart phone called Nexus One, or a new tablet PC with free software, for example? Because the computer industry and the wireless industry are being destroyed by their own greed! Two-year lock-ins, extra charges for text messages that cost the wireless carriers zero, software that costs hundreds of dollars; these industries are full of inefficiencies and over-pricing that the Internet renders obsolete. And that means (as it always does) new opportunities for smart, savvy entrepreneurs with a new approach.
In a world of near-frictionless capitalism, where every company, product and service is at the tip of those fingers tapping on a keyboard, why would customers choose anything less?
