China accused of hacking Gmail to suppress dissent

24th March, 2011 by adina
Tags: , , , , ,

A few days ago, Google accused the government of China for the second time to have hacked into Gmail accounts in order to quash protest. Numerous problems of Chinese customers have been signalled over the past month for both sending and flagging messages. Activists are said to have been the primary targets, but attacks were intentionally obscured to look like a service glitch, as Google answered an inquiry of the Guardian.

China did not respond to these accusations so far, but, in the past, the government had denied to have been involved in such actions, although if Google claimed it could track the original attacks to a Chinese university frequently used to recruit cyberwarfare teams.

It is not clear what course the action could take from this point, but it is certain that Google’s presence in China will continue to be deteriorated. Following the incident appeared in January 2010, Google pulled out the search engine from mainland China after claiming it would not continue to censor search results. The company redirected requests to Google Hong Kong, as local lessened restrictions let it operate freely. The Chinese government is still known to maintain a strict control of whatever gets through.

In case Google planned a further withdrawal, it would affect the adoption of Android, which is used by local phone makers and carriers like Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei. All these companies depend on Android to maintain prices low and permit customization, but the government of China has the authority and can impose what platforms they should use.


     

    Readers Comments