MattJay Security

UFC 1337: Google vs. China

My most recent post over at LiquidMatrix Security Digest

To the surprise of most everybody who read this, Google has grown a pair in the fight for free speech and against internet censorship. Well.. at least they say they are..

…the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

This comes after the apparent attack upon Google and other American organizations originating from China.

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.

As of the time I wrote this post Google.cn is still up, so no preemptive praise just yet. I’m going to be interested to hear what else pops up about this story in the near future.

Read on

Some other insight so far:

RSnake
Rep. Eshoo Responds to Attack on Google

Cheers,
Matt

Don’t have any original content to add just hoping to spread the word. A quick re-blog of Kees Leune’s post about this month’s IsleSec meetup. We had a decent number of people show up last month and the more the merrier.

“After our (first) meeting last month, Matt Johansen and myself have decided to give IsleSec a continuation.

IsleSec builds on the tradition of popular CitySec meetings, such as NYSEC, BeanSec, etc. and it provides an informal place for people to hang out, have a bite, drink beer (or something else), and chat about security-related issues.

We invite everyone with an interest in information security, ranging from techies to security executives to join us. Yes, even security auditors are welcome Vendors can come too, but please do not use the meet-up as a place to sell your wares. If you want to car pool, or take the train out to the meeting with company, please drop a note on our general access email group.

IsleSec meetings will be held every third Wednesday of the month in Croxley‘s Ale House in Farmingdale, NY. Croxley’s is located next to the train station and is easily reachable by car from Nassau and Suffolk.

This month’s meeting will be on January 20, 2010. The meetings typically start when the first person shows up (somewhere between 6pm and 7pm) and continue until the last person leaves (somewhere between 10pm and 11pm). Sponsors are more than welcome to contact me to arrange how to give us free beer.”