MetaFilter posts tagged with China and Google

The iEconomy

zarq — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:52:45 -0800

The iEconomy: Apple and Technology Manufacturing. Since January, the New York Times has been running a series of articles "examining the challenges posed by increasingly globalized high-tech industries," with a focus on Apple's business practices. The seventh article in the series was published today: In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. Related: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System and Fighters in the Patent War. Part 1: "An Empire Built Abroad" (January 12, 2012) * How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work (Previously on MetaFilter) * Motion Graphic: The iPhone Economy Part 2: "A Punishing System" (January 25, 2012) * In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad * Graphic: Compliance by the Numbers * The Lede Blog: Chinese Readers on the ‘iEconomy’ / Voices of Chinese Readers on the 'iEconomy' * Poll Finds Consumer Confusion on Where Apple Devices Are Made * The Lede Blog: Questions for Li Qiang of China Labor Watch * Economix Blog: Facebook Chat About the 'iEconomy' Series Part 3: "Protecting Profits" (April 29, 2012) * How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Global Taxes * Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices * Graphic: Shrinking Corporate Tax Rates * Graphic: One Technique Apple Pioneered Video: Charles Duhigg and David Kocieniewski Respond to Reader Questions and Comments Part 4: "Retailing's King" (June 24, 2012) * Apple’s Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay * Video: Video: David Segal Responds to Reader Questions and Comments Part 5: "The Impossible Made Possible" (August 5, 2012) * In Wooing of Nissan, a Lesson for Tech Jobs? * Graphic: Evolution of a Manufacturing Supply Chain * Slideshow: An Automaker Migrates to Tennessee * Room for Debate: Should the U.S. Seek More Tech Manufacturing? Part 6: "Artificial Competence" (August 19, 2012) * Skilled Work without the Worker: A New Wave of Adept Robots Is Changing Global Industry (This article is linked in this post.) * Video: The Robot Factory Future * Video: Business Day Live: Nissan's Lesson Part 7: "A System in Disarray" (October 8, 2012) * In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. * Graphic: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System * Graphic: Fighters in the Patent War

You don't need a visa on Google+

desjardins — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:25:41 -0800

The Dalai Lama was prevented from going to South Africa for Desmond Tutu's 80th birthday by visa problems. So they used Google+ to "Hangout" instead.

2010: The Year in Data Breaches

These Premises Are Alarmed — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:56:29 -0800

Wikileaks may have been the big news, but there were numerous other data breaches in 2010. The year started off with 'Aurora' - a coordinated attack against Google, Adobe, and others, which used vulnerabilities an Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader and Acrobat to steal intellectual property and attempt to access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. This attack brought the phrase "Advanced Persistent Threat" into the lexicon. Also, it supposedly got Google to switch all employees off Windows systems and take a more 'open' approach towards China. It wasn't just the big guys. Many, many small businesses were targeted, too. Specialized malware hit systems used for accounting and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, often using "money mules" recruited through help-wanted ads. Health care companies also lost your info: a former Wellpoint employee was convicted of stealing health care providers' info to buy cell phones and forge checks. Wellpoint also notified up to 470,000 members that their personal health and financial information, including some social security numbers, were exposed after a botched website upgrade. Aetna threw out a file cabinet with the personal information of about 5,000 customers, Marsh and Mercer lost a backup tape being sent by courier with data for 121 patients and KPMG lost an unencrypted flash drive with 3,630 records. All in all "medical identity theft" struck 5.8% of US adults. Hotels, especially luxury brands, rose in prominence as targets of data thieves. Westin and Wyndham both acknowledged being hit. HEI, operator of Marriotts, Sheratons and Westins, sent letters to 3,400 customers stating their credit card numbers may have been compromised. AT&T and Apple got bad press for exposing the email address of everyone who bought an iPhone 4 in its early days, and disclosing[*] information on 114,000 3G iPad purchasers. Even an Energizer USB battery charger contained a backdoor that allowed remote access into the user's system. Malicious code spread through Twitter and a large email marketing firm had their database stolen. Banks remained a popular target. They did themselves no favors: it was reported up to 9,000 USB sticks are left in suit pockets at dry cleaners in London. A couple ID thieves were convicted of stealing names and account numbers at Wells Fargo, and Wells had more trouble with insider breaches. Hackers hit online check image archiving companies for $9 million. Can't get your bank on the phone? Maybe you're the victim of a telecom denial of service, where your phone system is overloaded to divert your bank trying to confirm a transaction. Governments lose data too: from UK Ministry of Defence down to state retirement boards. And, high school students still test their school's systems. Former NYC employees stole birth certificates and social security cards to sell. The Stuxnet worm supposedly was written by one government to target the operations of another. The Pentagon reported the "most serious" breach ever, caused by a flash drive inserted into a military laptop. Security remains hard to do right: the much-hyped Haystack program to allow dissidents free communication turned out to be snakeoil. Intel admitted the encryption key for Blu-Ray was disclosed, possibly having been brute-forced instead of leaked. A proprietary encryption key in car immobilizers was cracked. The BackTrack security testing Linux distro had their site compromised. [*] Link goes to Gawker, who had their own small data breach incident, too. Want to read more? My most frequent sources are The Office of Inadequate Security, the RISKS digest, and the great reporting of Brian Krebs.

We don't need you to type at all

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:06:36 -0800

"With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches," [Google CEO Eric Schmidt] said. "We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about... We can look at bad behavior and modify it." The Atlantic's editor James Bennet discusses with Schmidt how lobbyists write America's laws, how America's research universities are the best in the world, how the Chinese are going all-out in investing in their infrastructure, how the US should have allowed automakers to fail, and ultimately Google's evolving role in an technologically-augmented society in this broad, interesting and scary interview (~25 min Flash video) [via]

"Google has inadvertently waded into disputes from Israel to Cambodia to Iran"

desjardins — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:26:14 -0800

The Agnostic Cartographer : How Google’s open-ended maps are embroiling the company in some of the world’s touchiest geopolitical disputes.

Sun Tzu would be proud

shii — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:20:50 -0800

Google vs. China, Round 2! Starting today, Google has redirected google.cn to their other Chinese search engine, google.com.hk. Will China be forced to block access to their own domains? Will Hong Kong, home to widespread political protest, be further segregated from the mainland? For the benefit of Western audiences, Google has made a page for us see what's getting blocked. (previously/2)

Release early, often and with rap music.

finite — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:00:50 -0800

The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. You may know them from such projects as How to build a fake Google Street View car, public domain donor stickers, internet famous class, the first rap video to end with a download source code link, or their numerous firefox add-ons (such as China Channel, Tourettes Machine, or Back to the future). FAT members have been hard at work standardizing various open source graffiti-related software packages, including Graffiti Analysis, Laser Tag, Fat Tag Deluxe and EyeWriter [previously] to be GML (Graffiti Markup Language) compliant. Fuck Google. Fuck Twitter. Fuck Flickr. Fuck SXSW. Fuck 3D. FAT Lab is Kanye shades for the open source movement.

I'm aware of the irony of reposting this.

flatluigi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:06:50 -0800

The Google/China hacking case, or "How many news outlets do the original reporting on a big story?"

Google vs. China

Joe Beese — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:19:08 -0800

The charges and retaliations seem reminiscent of so much cold war bluster, and indeed this encounter could be the first great clash of the 21st century’s two emergent superpowers—Google and China.

A New Approach To China

memebake — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:39:57 -0800

Official Google Blog: 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 ... ... we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists ... ... 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.

Google Images Censored in China

FeldBum — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 17:11:06 -0800

Google Images Censored in China A picture says 1000 words, and Google.cn is censoring them all. Check out the side-by-side screens of a search for "tiananmen+square" in Google.com and Google.cn images. Looks like a nice place, with little historical significance. You can try the search yourself. The text on the bottom left is the censorship disclaimer. Very different than our results. A far cry from Google's claim that they do not censor results. Nice to know that they stand up to the government here but not abroad.

A good spoof of the whole thing.

Don't be evil?

Steve_at_Linnwood — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 19:19:46 -0800

~~Don't be evil.~~ Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market. Google will roll out a new version of its search engine bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," on Wednesday.

China Blocks Google

artlung — Tue, 03 Sep 2002 11:09:35 -0800

China Blocks Google » In the highest praise yet for Google, China (as in "great firewall of China") blocks Google. Dissident search engines. It must be the future.

Corporate censorship in China

pixelgeek — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 21:07:25 -0800

Corporate censorship in China (via slashdot). I guess censorship and collusion in the repression of people is okay if you're making profits for your shareholders. An eye-opening look into the way that corporations are helping to facilitate censorship on the Internet in China. AOL and Yahoo's attitudes to what I thought were universal human rights is nothing short of sickening.