谷歌可能撤出中國

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.

Writing about China as an American is always tricky, but nowhere
near as tricky as what an American company faces doing business there.
Let me say upfront, I don’t envy Google. The company has had more
success in China than a lot of other big Valley names, but isn’t and
will likely never be the market leader. And to get that far, many in
the West feel Google has had to compromise its “do-no-evil” ethics by
agreeing to some of the government’s censorship rules. Google has been
damned either way: China is too big of a market to ignore, but getting
as far as they have has come at a steep price to their reputation and
international (read: Western) integrity.

Enter the now famous blog post
(that was notably, only on the English-language site) saying that
Google was no longer playing by the Chinese government’s rules and was
prepared to close down Chinese operations if it came to that. Valley
elites erupted into applause on Twitter and blogs saying Google was
showing more backbone than the US government and was a model of
integrity for the world.

I’ll give Google this much: They’re taking a bad situation and
making something good out of it, both from a human and business point
of view. I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but
this was as much about business. Lest we get too self-righteous as
Westerners, we should remember three things:

1. Google’s business was not doing well in China.
Does anyone really think Google would be doing this if it had top
market share in the country? For one thing, I’d guess that would open
them up to shareholder lawsuits. Google is a for-profit, publicly-held
company at the end of the day. When I met with Google’s former head of
China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he
left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to
substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has
clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning
what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in
the rest of the world.

2. Google is ready to burn bridges. This is not how
negotiations are done in China, and Google has done well enough there
to know that. You don’t get results by pressuring the government in a
public, English-language blog post. If Google were indeed still working
with the government this letter would not have been posted because it
has likely slammed every door shut, as a long-time entrepreneur in
China Marc van der Chijs and many others said
on Twitter. This was a scorched earth move, aimed at buying Google some
good will in the rest of the world; Chinese customers and staff were
essentially just thrown under the bus.

3. This is only going to be a trickier issue in the next decade. Think the Shanda acquisition
of Mochi Media was an isolated event? Think again. Chinese Web
companies are building huge cash hoards and valuable stock currencies
and it’s still a comparatively young Web market. Increasingly, these
companies could be likely buyers of US startups—not the other way
around. Will the Valley’s rhetoric stick then?

This may be the most shocking part: In retrospect Yahoo has played
China far better than Google. It pulled out of the country years ago,
knowing it wouldn’t win and owns nearly 40% of the Alibaba, a company
that very definitely knows how to grow in China. Entrepreneur and angel
investor in China Bill Bishop
—who hasn’t always agreed with my China coverage in the past—pointed
this out, adding “Not often Yahoo looks smarter than Google.”

2010年1月14日

涉及中美國家安全較勁

Google挑戰中國，似乎不單只是商業糾紛，更可能是中美兩國繼氣候談判、人民幣、貿易戰等糾紛後另一場角力的前哨戰，甚至涉及中美國家安全的較勁。

正在夏威夷的美國國務卿希拉莉（Hillary Clinton）【圖】很快便發表聲明表示，Google向華府簡布了有關網絡審查和黑客入侵等引起嚴重憂慮和問題的指控，美國將尋求中國政府就事件解釋，因為在現今社會和經濟中，能夠自信地在互聯網營運是十分重要的。

美國《華爾街日報》昨天報道，一名知情人士說，調查已進行數周，調查員正調查受到的攻擊，是否與中國政府或情報機構有關。這次攻擊已引起國家安全局等美國情報機構插手調查的興趣，而黑客攻擊的對象多達三十四家不同的公司及組織。

實際上，希拉莉早已計劃下周四就網絡自由發表演說，一群科技公司的領袖上周與希拉莉在國務院共晉晚餐，為希拉莉提供意見，當中包括Google行政總裁施密特（Eric Schmidt）。

希拉莉的助手說，希拉莉有意協助一些國家的人民可在不受審查的網絡瀏覽網站，當中包括中國。

美國專家表示，中美快將就此問題大戰，在中國有意塑造出專制政權下的網絡模式，中美哪方究竟首先被迫讓步，勢將惹人注目，而科技公司將游說兩國，並將深深涉及爭拗中。

國防公司Defense Group的情報研究及分析中心董事毛文傑（James Mulvenon）表示，發動襲擊的黑客互聯網地址至少有六個來自台灣，這是中國黑客常用來掩飾其源頭的策略■