Google v. Censorship: Chinese Cold War Hotting Up
A week ago, Google made an historic announcement that it would no longer comply with Chinese web-censorship standards. Evidence of Gmail surveillance directed towards human-rights activists have driven the search giant to "review the feasibility of business operations in China." Microsoft has since attributed the incident to an Internet Explorer security flaw, adding that the attack required "a level of sophistication above that of typical, isolated cyber criminal efforts." A Google counteroffensive traced the attacks to mainland China, as well as identifying 33 other corporate victims, yet definitive evidence of government involvement could not be uncovered.
Google struck back again yesterday by 'postponing' delivery of new Samsung and Motorola Android phones indefinitely. The intended recipient, Telecom China Mobile is engaged in the screening of text messages for arbitrary "unhealthy content" and denying the service of users sending illicit messages. SMS surveillance combined with the vast array of blocked internet search keywords point to a coordinated national effort to control the information sent and received by Chinese citizens.
Student Experts appreciates the opportunities provided by maintaining the internet as a free medium (such as this blog). Just the inclusion of the phrase 'Chinese democracy' would be enough to blackball this post from Chinese servers. If you are concerned about World of Warcraft-deprived Chinese children, write your representative so that America might lead by example in setting some ground rules for data diplomacy. Google and China are on the front line of a budding civil rights battle, the implications of which have the potential to affect us all.
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