Anonymous hacks Chinese websites

A screen shot of the hacked home page for Chengdu city's business district.

Messages by the international hacking group Anonymous went up on a number of Chinese government websites on Thursday to protest internet restrictions. On a Twitter account established in late March, Anonymous China listed the websites it said it had hacked over the last several days. They included government bureaus in several Chinese cities, including in Chengdu, a provincial capital in southwest China. Some of the sites were still blocked on Thursday, with English-language messages shown on how to circumvent government restrictions. In a message left on one of the hacked Chinese sites, cdcbd.gov.cn, a home page for Chengdu's business district, the hackers expressed anger with the Chinese government for restrictions placed on the internet. "Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall," the message read. "So expect us because we do not forgive, never. What you are doing today to your Great People, tomorrow will be inflicted to you," one of the messages read. Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan, reporting from Hong Kong, said that the attack was interesting because Anonymous had mostly previously stayed away from attacking Chinese websites. "This is just (Anonymous') second attack (on Chinese websites)," Chan said. "The first one a few months ago had been a corporate attack against a Chinese company and it had exposed corporate fraud. This time, of course, the message was more general about online censorship in China." Chan also pointed out the attacks did not target national websites, but smaller sites for government bureaus and minor cities. "The other interesting thing is that the messages they left were left in English, so then that begs the question of whether they wanted to try to reach out to the Chinese public or not," Chan said. Some websites that Anonymous said it attacked were working Thursday, and government officials denied the sites were ever hacked.

Source: Al Jazeera

Google's China License Problem Remains Unresolved

After five days of waiting, Google is still in the dark about whether the company's operating license in China will be renewed.

PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ALSO READ:

• 
  
  Google Softens Approach to China
• 
  
  Suspicious Facebook App Attracts Nearly 300,000 Fans - PCWorld Business Center
• 
  
  Beijing Angry With EU Anti-dumping Investigation
• 
  
  Internet Explorer 8 Growing Three Times Faster than Chrome
• 
  
  10 Technologies That Should Be Extinct (But Aren't)
• 
  
  Motorola Details Breakup Plans

As of Monday morning, Beijing time, the search engine giant had yet to hear back from the Chinese government regarding the license, said Jessica Powell, a Google spokeswoman.

The license, which is issued by the Chinese authorities, is necessary for Google to continue operating its China-based Web site, Google.cn. But tensions between the company and Chinese officials have put the license's renewal in doubt.

In March, Google decided to stop censoring the results to its Google.cn search engine by shutting the site down. All internet traffic from the site was then redirected to Google's uncensored Hong Kong search engine. The move quickly angered Chinese officials, who demanded that the company comply with Chinese laws that require companies to censor search results.

Now, with Google's operating license up for renewal the company has decided to take a step back from its previous actions in a bid to comply with government demands. Last week, Google.cn was restored as a "landing page," where users are given a link to the company's Hong Kong page rather than automatically redirected to it.

Since Google's license went up for renewal last Wednesday, the company's web search services have also been partially blocked in China. Google Suggest, a feature that provides probable search terms when user types their query, continues to be blocked, Powell said.