China says its Web open, welcomes Int'l companies

www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-14 17:31:18

BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's Internet is open and welcomes international companies, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday, just two days after Google issued a statement saying it might quit China.

Spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing that China encouraged development of the Internet.

"China's Internet is open," said Jiang. "China has tried creating a favorable environment for Internet," said Jiang while responding to a question on Google's possible retreat.

"China welcomes international Internet companies to conduct business within the country according to law," she said. "China's law prohibits cyber crimes including hacker attacks."

Google's corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, posted a statement on the company's official blog on Tuesday, indicating the possibility that Google may "shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

The statement said that its disputes with the government and unidentified attacks targeting Google's services in China forced the company to make the review of "the feasibility of our business operations in China."

Google sent a short statement to Xinhua Wednesday, saying, "We are proud of our achievements in China. Currently we are reviewing the decision and hope for a resolution."

According to the iResearch Consulting Group, the Chinese search engine market reached nearly 7 billion yuan (about 1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2009, and Google took 32.8 percent of the market in the third-quarter while China's home-grown search engine Baidu claimed 63.8 percent.

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The Thinker: In Praise of Google China

Jakarta Globe, Nicholas D Kristof

A Chinese Google user carries flowers to the Google China headquarters in Beijing. (Reuters Photo/Jason Lee)

It has been dispiriting to see America’s banks apparently stand for nothing more lofty than plunder. It has been demoralizing to see President Barack Obama hiding from the Dalai Lama rather than offend China’s rulers.

So all that makes Google’s decision to stand up to Chinese cyberoppression positively breathtaking. By announcing that it no longer plans to censor search results in China, even if that means it must withdraw from the country, Google is showing spine — a kind that few other companies or governments have shown toward Beijing.

One result was immediate: Young Chinese have been visiting Google’s headquarters in Beijing to deposit flowers and pay their respects.

Cynics say that Google tried to turn a business setback (it lags in the Chinese market behind a local search engine, Baidu) into a bid to burnish its brand. Whatever the motivations, it marks a refreshing contrast to Yahoo assisting the Chinese government in sending four dissidents — Shi Tao, Li Zhi, Jiang Lijun and Wang Xiaoning — to prison for terms of up to 10 years.

“In the 20 years I’ve been doing this work, I can’t think of anything comparable,” said John Kamm, the founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, which has enjoyed remarkable success in encouraging China to release dissidents. Kamm, a former business leader himself, argues that Western companies could do far more to project their values.

Google announced its decision after a sophisticated Chinese attempt to penetrate the Gmail addresses of dissidents. The episode and the resulting flap highlight two important points about China.

The first is that Beijing is increasingly devoting itself to cyberwarfare. This is a cheap way to counter American dominance in traditional military fields. If the United States and China ever jostle with force, Beijing may hit us not with missiles but with cyberinfiltrations that shut down the electrical grid, disrupt communications and tinker with the floodgates of dams.

Moreover, China’s leaders aren’t keeping their cyberarsenal in reserve. They seem to be using it aggressively already.

A major coordinated assault on computers of the Dalai Lama, foreign embassies and even foreign ministries was uncovered last year and traced to Chinese hackers. The operation targeted computers in more than 100 countries and was so widespread that Western intelligence experts believe it was organized by the Chinese government, although there is no definitive proof of that.

(If this column is replaced on nytimes.com with one under my byline praising the glorious courage of the Chinese Communist Party in standing up to the bourgeois imperialists of Google — well, that would make my case.)

A second point is that China is redrawing the balance between openness and economic efficiency. The architect of China’s astonishingly successful economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, clenched his teeth and accepted photocopiers, fax machines, cellphones, computers and lawyers because they were part of modernization.

Yet in the last few years, President Hu Jintao has cracked down on Internet freedoms and independent lawyers and journalists. Hu is intellectually brilliant but seems to have no vision for China 20 years from now.

Instead, vision and leadership in China have come from its Netizens, who show none of the lame sycophancy that so many foreigners do. In their Twitter photos, many display yellow ribbons to show solidarity with Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese writer recently sentenced to 10 years in prison. That’s guts!

China’s Netizens scale the Great Firewall of China with virtual private networks and American-based proxy servers like Freegate.

Young Chinese also are infinitely creative. When the government blocks references to “June 4,” the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Netizens evade the restriction by typing in “May 35.”

When I lived in China in the 1990s, an early computer virus would pop up on the screen and ask: Do you like Li Peng? (He was then the widely disliked hard-line prime minister.) If you said you didn’t like Li Peng, the virus disappeared and did no harm. If you expressed support for him, it tried to wipe out your hard drive.

Eventually, I think, a combination of technology, education and information will end the present stasis in China. In a conflict between the Communist Party and Google, the party will win in the short run. But in the long run, I’d put my money on Google.

Nicholas D Kristof is a New York Times columnist.

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Scientists crack code, raising the bar for digital security

NRC International, 13 January 2010 11:50, by Bennie Mols

A computer processor. Photo AP

A group of scientists, including several mathematicians in Amsterdam, has set a new record in digital code-cracking.

The group of mathematical scientists succeeded in factoring a 232-digit number into two prime quotients, each 116 digits long. The feat constitutes a new world record, shattering the last one set five years ago when a number 200 digits long was factored into primes.

The international group of scientists, which includes mathematicians working for the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam, has presented a paper describing its feat to the online periodical Cryptology for publication.

Prime numbers are numbers only divisible by one and themselves. They play a crucial role in protecting digital information. Secure connections commonly used in electronic banking depend on them. So called RSA-cryptography, named after its inventors, (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman) works with large numbers that are the product of two primes.

How prime numbers are used in codes

The number 15 is a good example of a figure that can easily be factored into two primes: 3 and 5. The larger a number gets however, the more difficult it is to determine whether this number can be factored into primes and, if so, which primes it factors into. So far, no one has discovered a quick mathematical solution to this so-called ‘factorisation problem’.

The difficulty in finding out the prime quotients is the foundation of RSA-cryptography. In RSA, the product of two large prime numbers is used as a public security key to encode information, but anybody looking to break the code needs to know its secret prime quotients to do so. These can only be discovered by factoring the number into primes and that is only possible through the use of brute computational force.

To determine the reliability of digital security protocols, mathematicians are constantly trying to factor larger numbers into their constituent primes using ever larger supercomputers. Their approach basically consists of multiplying two large primes until they have been able to confirm the number under scrutiny is the product of two prime factors. A normal personal computer would need 1,700 years to reconstitute the 232-digit number into primes.

By pooling the processing capacity of hundreds of fast computers, the mathematicians were able to unveil the secrets of RSA-768 (a 232-digit decimal equals 768 digital bits) in two and a half years.

Old RSA-codes no longer safe

The 768-bit key that has now been hacked is currently used only for encrypting information that need only remain secret for a few weeks. Even so, cracking it is no cakewalk. Anybody intent on deciphering it would require computing capacity equal to that the scientists had at their disposal.

Sensitive information which needs to remain secret for longer periods of time, credit card information for instance, is coded using 1,024 bit keys (309-decimal digits). These have not been cracked yet and are considered to be safe –for the time being. “Cracking these codes requires a thousand times more computational power,” said Herman te Riele, a scientist working for the CWI involved in the cracking of the RSA-768 code. “Ten years ago, we cracked a 512-bit code. Five years back, we did a 663-bit one. You need approximately a thousand times more computational power for each 256 additional bits. We hope to crack a 1024-bit code in the next ten years. 768-bit codes should not really be used any more. Ten years from now, 1.280-bit codes should have become the standard.”

A new approach to China

Google Blog, 1/12/2010 03:00:00 PM

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. 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 have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this U.S. government report (PDF), Nart Villeneuve's blog and this presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China's economic reform programs and its citizens' entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

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Google Docs to Allow Storage of Any Type of File

PC World

By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service

Google is opening up its Docs hosted office productivity suite so that users can store any type of file in it, giving the popular software-as-a-service product an important online storage component.

The functionality will be rolled out over the coming weeks to all Docs users, both the ones who use the stand-alone suite as well as those who use it as part of the broader communication and collaboration Apps suite for organizations.

Now, Docs users will be able to store all their important files in a single place online, where they can access them from anywhere and share them with other people, according to Google.

"This is a natural extension and progression of what we've been doing with Google Docs," said Vijay Bangaru, Google Docs product manager.

One thing it's not, according to Bangaru, is the G-drive, the often-rumored cloud storage service from Google that has yet to see the light of day. "On the consumer side, this isn't a virtual drive. There isn't a client that's going to help you sync terabytes to the cloud," he said.

Google did work with some partners that built applications that take advantage of this new functionality via a Docs API (application programming interface). Those external applications were built specifically for users of the Premier version of Apps, which is the most sophisticated and the only one that is fee-based, priced at US$50 per user, per year. Companies that use Apps Premier will also be able to build their own applications in-house using the API.

Just because users will be able to store any type of file on Google Docs doesn't mean, however, that they will necessarily be able to work on those files on the Docs cloud, as is possible in the suite today with Adobe PDF files, Microsoft Office files and, of course, the native Docs file formats.

"Unfortunately, it's not possible to write Web editors for every file content out there," he said. In those cases, users will be able to access the files online and share them with others, but in order to work on them, they'll have to download them to their PCs and fire up the necessary application.

Along with the new capabilities, Google is lifting the ceiling on file sizes to 250MB. Users of the stand-alone Docs suite will have 1GB of free storage for files stored in their native formats, as opposed to converted to a native Docs format. They'll be able to buy additional storage for $0.25 per gigabyte per year. Google Apps users will also get 1GB of storage, and will have the ability to buy additional storage for $3.50 per gigabyte per year.

While Docs currently doesn't have one-click buttons to post or publish files to third-party sites and services like Facebook, Google isn't closing the door on adding that functionality and more.

"The idea behind this feature is that it's really an opportunity for Google to invest in cloud storage and provide value added services to its users around sharing files, uploading files and being able to collaborate and search on all of that content," said Anil Sabharwal, Google Docs product manager. "There's a great opportunity for us to provide value-added services on top of any of those file types."

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Microsoft makes it legal to rent Windows, Office worldwide

ZDNet, Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:14 am

For the past few years, Microsoft has been conducting experiments in various countries as to how and whether “renting” software could become a viable business model. The answer seemingly must have been yes, since Microsoft quietly added rental SKUs, as of January 1, to the list of license types available to customers worldwide.

Though some industry watchers consider Microsoft’s various annuity licensing options — like Software Assurance, via which users pay for the right to use Windows, Office, and other Microsoft products, in chunks over a period of three years — to be “rental” programs, they technically aren’t. Under the newly introduced rental program, a customer would pay a flat fee to use Windows or Office 2007 (Standard or Professional versions) for a year.

The new rental rights specifics are explained further on Microsoft’s Partner site:

• “Windows desktop operating system and Microsoft Office system licenses do not permit renting, leasing, or outsourcing the software to a third party. As a result, many organizations that rent, lease, or outsource desktop PCs to third parties (such as Internet cafés, hotel and airport kiosks, business service centers, and office equipment leasing companies) are not compliant with Microsoft license requirements.
  
  
• “Rental Rights are a simple way for organizations to get a waiver of these licensing restrictions through a one-time license transaction valid for the term of the underlying software license or life of the PC.”

According to the partner site, the new rental rights SKUs are now on the Microsoft Product List for volume licensees. The additive licenses are available to those with Microsoft Open licenses, Microsoft Select/Select Plus and government licenses. In other words, a customer must buy stand-alone licenses of Windows and Office in order to “rent” the software. The new license modifies the licensing terms, rather than replacing the underlying Windows and Office copies. The new license also bans the rental of virtual machines running Windows or Office, according to Microsoft’s Partner site.

Directions on Microsoft analyst Paul DeGroot said he considered the worldwide availability of licensing rights to be a big deal.

“Microsoft has not allowed customers to rent software on their computers (it is forbidden in the End User License Agreement), but they began experimenting with this in some high-piracy, low-income markets last year. Suddenly on January 1, the geographic restrictions are gone, and rental prices are on the US price list,” he said.

The new rental option “could give a boost to Internet cafes, companies renting rather than buying computers, etc.,” DeGroot said. “It also could be good for seasonal businesses who could rent additional PCs for a short time, then send them back.”

To attract interest in the new rental program, Microsoft is offering a promotion (through the end of June 2010), via which a rental version of Office Professional is available for $58 (regularly $83 via volume discount pricing). Office Standard (rental) is available for $45 per copy (as opposed to $64 per copy regularly.) Windows is available for $23 per copy (as opposed to $32 per copy), DeGroot noted.

“Those sound quite attractive, considering they are one-time (not annual) prices, and rental outfits can spread the cost across a lot of customers,” DeGroot said. “Prices may also be different in other geographies.”

DeGroot said the new licensing offer could be another way for Microsoft to try to convince users of older and illegal versions of its software to upgrade.

Making software available under a rental license “suggests that Microsoft sees this as something that small companies or — who knows, even big ones — would want to do. It’s also another way to try to reduce the drag from ‘good enough,’ particularly for Office, since you can’t rent licenses for earlier versions of Office (even though customers under volume license agreements can still purchase older versions, as far back as Windows XP).” It’s worth noting that in emerging markets and some outfits with Internet cafes and kiosks, the older versions may be the only ones that will run on older hardware in use, DeGroot noted.

The new rental program also is another way Microsoft is trying to reduce piracy, DeGroot said.

“To use the rental license, you must have a licensed, Pro version. This is a bit quaint — pirates in the third world have been renting any version of Windows and any version of Office for years, and the cost of legal Windows Pro licenses as well as even more costly Office licenses that you need to buy before you can even buy the rental license add-ons will put the shop using legal licenses at a severe price disadvantage to the shop renting pirated versions, but hope springs eternal….”

Microsoft has been testing Office rental programs for more than two years. The company has been testing an Office “pay-as-you-go” rental program for a pre-paid version of Office Professional in India, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Egypt, South Africa and Romania.

In related news, some Microsoft volume licensees still seem to be having problems accessing Microsoft’s newly redesigned Volume Licensing Service Center. (The Register reported VLSC access problems back in December, 2009.) On January 11, Microsoft officials publicly acknowledged and apologized for the problem via the company’s SMB Community blog, attributing the difficulties to a new registration system. Microsoft is advising those who are still having access problems to try a list of informational Web sites (supplied in the aforementioned blog post) or contact the company directly.

Is Google's Energy Endeavor Its Next Step In World Domination?

The Atlantic, Jan 8 2010, 12:53 pm by Daniel Indiviglio

First, the internet. Then smartphones. Now it looks like Google wants its piece of the energy pie as well. The company created a "Google Energy" subsidiary last month. It's also applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be allowed to buy and sell power, like utilities. What exactly does the internet search leader want with energy? To be that much closer to taking over the world? Possibly. But it's more likely that the company just wants to enhance and protect its profit margin.

The New York Times' Bits blog reports:

• Google said it did not have specific plans to become an energy trader and that its primary goal was to gain flexibility for buying more renewable energy for its power-hungry data centers.
  
  
• "We want to have the ability to procure renewable energy to offset power usage of our operations," said Niki Fenwick, a Google spokeswoman. Ms. Fenwick said that having access to more renewable energy could help the company fulfill its goal to become "carbon neutral."
  
  

Right, because Google runs on energy, literally. Think about the thousands of databases and computer terminals sucking power 24-7 at Google's headquarters each day. Does it really want to have to rely on electric companies to control its energy costs? If it had some power over its energy sources, that could bend its cost curve dramatically.

So what Google is likely doing here is bracing for the inevitable increase in energy prices associated with the depletion of fossil fuels. It would likely prefer to shape its energy destiny by relying on cheaper, renewable energy sources in the years to come. While this has pleasant environmental implications, there's little doubt that Google has economic reasons for this endeavor as well.

But why the need to trade energy? Because if it eventually goes off the grid and lines up agreements with independent electricity producers, then it could end up with a deficit -- or surplus -- of energy at any given time. The company would benefit from greater flexibility to buy and sell that energy.

Or maybe it's just part of Google's plan for world domination. Perhaps, one day, we'll all get our energy from Google. And our mobile phones, maps, books, e-mail, videos, searches. . .

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Introducing the Breaking Borders Awards

Google, 1/06/2010 11:19:00 AM

(Cross-posted from the Public Policy Blog)

Last year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. When I visited Berlin last November to participate in a conference entitled Breaking Borders, politicians, policy makers, netizens and journalists all agreed on the importance of freedom of expression for a functioning democracy. The web is providing once unimaginable possibilities for political participation, free exchange of information and democratic movements around the world.

As part of the Berlin conference, we announced a plan to work with an NGO called Global Voices and with Thomson Reuters to establish the Breaking Borders Awards.

The awards will honor outstanding web projects by individuals or groups who have shown courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression, making us aware of diverse political viewpoints and standing up to those who censor information. The winners will be those who are making a real difference. We are delighted to share further details about the awards and invite nominations.

Closing date for submissions is February 15. Details on how to apply and the opportunities to join the award committee can be found on the website.

Posted by Rachel Whetstone, Vice President Global Communications and Public Affairs

Dutch Euro commissioner sketches plans

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 6 January 2010 - 9:28pm

photo: Neelie Kroes (ANP)

Neelie Kroes, who hopes to become the next European commissioner for ICT and telecom, would push for quick internet links throughout Europe. She wants all European to have access to broadband internet by 2013.

She sketched her potential plans as ICT commissioner in a written answer to Euro MPs ahead of Thursday's session on her suitability for the post. She has already said she will keep a close eye on charges for cross-border mobile telephone calls, text messages and smart-phone internet.

LG flat-screen TV gets skinny

By John D. Sutter, CNN,January 6, 2010 1:52 p.m. EST

A flat-screen TV rolled out Wednesday by LG looked barely thicker than a piece of posterboard.

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- Think your TV is pretty slim? After seeing LG's new television, you may want to put that flat-screen of yours on a diet.

The South Korean electronics manufacturer unveiled a television Wednesday that is less than 7 millimeters thick.

The product, which is so new it doesn't have a name, was brought on stage briefly during an LG press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. It looked to be not much thicker than a piece of posterboard.

A spokeswoman said the TV should be available late this year.

Previously, LG's thinnest TV was 23.3 millimeters thick, or about three times as wide as the new hyper-slim television, said Woo Paik,LG's chief technology officer.

"This is a brand new product, and it's very exciting," Woo said at the event.

Few details on the super-skinny TV were immediately available. LG announced a number of new television products in its Infinia line, and representatives said most of the company's TVs this year will be connected to the Internet and to other home devices, a trend the industry calls "connected TV."

The company emphasized the diversity of its product lines -- from smartphones with projectors to energy-efficient washing machines -- and said 3-D television will soon be available from LG.

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