lovely limey "running dog of totalitarianism" yaps at google for china

jan 18th, 2010

scroll down a bit and see one (I assume a limey) cunningham singing for his supper. see, one more limey boy who is attaching his lips to chinese bottoms and hoping his accent will get him some crumbs. (btw i have never understood this "running dog" business. why not "walking dog" or "sitting dog"? i attribute that to the fact that the usual turgid communist prose is not quite english, just something that is almost english.)

also, as mentioned by me a couple of days ago, http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2010/01/hans-did-not-break-into-manmohans.html when harish khare, professional chinese mouthpiece, protested that the PMO office had not been hacked by chinese hackers, my antennae went up. it apparently meant one of three things:

a) it had been hacked, and khare was told to lie about it
b) it hadn't been hacked, because there was no need to. somebody was passing on the stuff via CD dropped in 'drop-boxes', james bond-ishtyle
c) it hadn't been hacked, but other sensitive offices had been.

now here's mk narayan, safely packed off to a sinecure as governor, admitting that the NSA office had indeed been hacked.

all from 'good morning silicon valley':

Good Morning Silicon Valley Outlook for Google's China talks: nasty, brutish and short By JOHN MURRELL Google said today that its envoys would be holding talks with Chinese authorities "in the coming few days" on the company's refusal to continue delivering censored search results and its threat to pull out, but if it wants a preview of the sentiment within the government, all it needs to do is look at today's edition of China Daily. The official state-run English language paper, often used as a vehicle for delivering the party line to the West, features not one, not two, but three pieces ripping into Google's decision and motives — a strong signal that Beijing is not in a compromising mood. An unsigned editorial said that Google's complaints regarding censorship and hacking were "not convincing" and that the company knew full well what it was getting into when it arrived. "If Google considered it feasible to develop its Internet business under Chinese law four years ago, it would be ridiculous for it to feel otherwise when the Internet environment here in China has improved tremendously in terms of censorship," said the editorial, adding, "Whatever the real cause for Google's possible move, this case is purely business in nature and it should have nothing to do with political ideology. If this Internet giant has political values, it should never have been involved in such a business." That opinion was echoed in an article credited to Liu Si of the official Xinhua News Agency: "There is no sense of blowing things out of proportion and turning a business issue into a political or diplomatic dispute. Above all, Google's decision is no bigger than a corporate maneuver, no matter where the company comes from or how powerful it is." But the most pointed barbs came in an op-ed piece by one Philip J. Cunningham, a professor of media studies at Doshisha University, Japan, casting aspersions on Google's core business ("Neither the super suave Mad Men nor real life ad men pretend their business is about maintaining a high moral standard. Advertising, an ethically challenged field of endeavor in the best of times, involves psychological suggestion, manipulation and deception.") and trying to turn the tables on the issue of trust ("Where's the 'Do No Evil' when it comes to collecting data and profiteering off the private lives of others? Google's hunger for information is largely a one-way street. How much do we know about Google and its inner workings and its secret deals? How good is it to its word when it comes to not reading other people's mails?"). Cunningham concluded by sounding the "just business" theme again: "It is also possible that Google, which has not gobbled up as much market share in China as it has elsewhere, may be exhaling one last triumphant hurrah, using its banal motto as cover, before beating an inglorious retreat. If so, it's yet another example of American hubris and imperialistic hypocrisy, which says in effect, do as we say, not as we do." Meanwhile in related news: * Reuters said it has been told by sources that Google's probe into the Chinese hack attack and the compromising of rights activists' Gmail accounts includes an investigation into the possible complicity of one or more employees working in Google's China office. * At least two foreign journalists living in Beijing have discovered that their Gmail accounts had been surreptitiously rigged to forward copies of all correspondence to an unfamiliar address, according to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China. * M. K. Narayanan, India's national security adviser, said his office and other government departments were targeted by hackers on December 15, the same date that Google and other U.S. companies reported cyber attacks from China. "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 said.